by Ann Fitzbibbons*
What first caught my attention was the itching. Over the course of late summer into fall I’d been watching a small mole grow near my collarbone. Some days it looked similar to all the other brown spots that had appeared on my neck, back and chest over the past decades. Other days I’d study it more closely and wasn’t convinced it was just a mole. But itch it did. By late autumn I noted it had become somewhat scaly. In December I scheduled an appointment with my dermatologist for early January.
Some years back after reading books and articles on the brain, stress, emotions, et cetera, I chanced upon the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Research abstracts on topics such as vaccines, dementia, autism, and long Covid intrigued me. Though my background is in literature and the visual arts, how the body fails and how it heals never ceases to amaze me. So I subscribed. With a new puppy in my life, I was up and out the door at the crack of dawn and then back to the house for coffee, my laptop and the news. The bleakness of current events wore me down but reading the daily JAMA emails fascinated me. By sheer coincidence, a few days before my appointment, JAMA published an abstract on “Keratinocyte Carcinoma.” Basal cell, squamous cell, UV exposure, age,
occurrence and re-occurrence, images of various skin cancers and their respective treatment. As I studied each image I suddenly saw myself, or rather my new skin growth, and thought, “Mine looks like that!”
And so it was… a keratinocyte carcinoma confirmed and treated by my
physician Dr. David J. Elpern.
DJE Comments: The growth Mrs. F was worried about was either a squamous cell carcinoma or an inflamed benign keratosis. It was easily shave excised and we should have the pathology results in a couple of days. It is interesting how the JAMA abstracts can educate the lay public. I had not known that the Journal was making its articles available to interested parties. This can be a force for good, as it was in this case; but also may heighten some people’s anxiety.
The Path results show: