Learning I Have Skin Cancer

Reposting my story from my Substack, Skin Wise.

“We got your biopsy results back. It’s invasive squamous cell carcinoma.”

The words literally hung in the air. Did she really just say carcinoma prefaced by invasive? I was floored.

The phone call from my doctor came only one day after she had excised a growth from my upper eyelid. In fact, when I saw her office number on the caller ID, I thought for sure it was a nurse just calling to ask how I was doing. A typical post-op check.

This call was the complete opposite of what I was expecting.

I had not anticipated the growth to be anything other than benign. Of course, it’s entirely reasonable that any growth could be cancerous. But every year my eye doctor looked at the lesion and told me it was nothing to worry about. “Just a little cholesterol deposit”. People have all kinds of benign spots on their bodies. It seemed plausible to me that this lesion was benign as well, so I accepted it.

I now feel like an idiot for doing so.

Yes, skin cancer can happen to anyone. I definitely don’t mean to imply that anyone who accepts a doctor’s diagnosis is an idiot. In fact, skin cancer is the most common form of cancer. The reason I feel like an idiot is because of what I used to do/now do for a living. I had a twenty year career at the intersection of medicine and law. Now I have a podcast all about toxins in our food and how they affect our health.

I have always done my own research and understand how to analyze complicated information. Now here I am with invasive skin cancer and before this happened, I really knew nothing about it.

No, I am not a doctor. Which is why, despite being angry with myself, I am trying hard to give myself some grace. That grace allows me to realize that even if I had researched this years ago, it wouldn’t have changed anything. I may very well have come to the same conclusion. Or a different one altogether. Hindsight is 20/20, right?

So, Michelle, just accept the grace and move on.

To be honest, I never thought about my skin much. Other than the wrinkles I was starting to get. The 11 lines on my forehead were becoming much more apparent in the recent years. I am a creature of habit and have been using the same skincare products my entire life. I knew the buzzwords—collagen, retinol and hyaluronic acid—and that’s about it. I thought my skin would always be there for me.

The problem is, I wasn’t there for my skin. I now know how very little about my skin I knew.

“You did the right thing and acted quickly”, my doctor continued. “Quick” is relative, of course, but I understood what she meant.

I really don’t know how long I had the lesion. It was more than several years before that it appeared and my optometrist told me it was nothing to worry about. Every year at my annual physical my doctor examined my body. The lesion was noted to be just a “skin tag”.

Even when it started to get bigger last fall, I was only slightly concerned. In fact, I blamed myself.

Just label me “one of those”. You see, I am “one of those” people that hate to take prescription medication. I rarely even take Tylenol. It stems from twenty years of reviewing medical records for my job and seeing the worst of things. Every case entailed people who took dozens of prescription meds. I came to realize that all this medicine isn’t a “cure”. In fact, a lot of it is very unhealthy.

I also decided that my time would likely come when I was taking my fair share of medication, so I want to hold off as long as possible. For years my doctor has been trying to get me to stay on my Statin due to a diagnosis of familial high cholesterol, something I have had since I was 17 years old. I willfully resist with the certainty I can control it myself. So when my presumed “cholesterol deposit” got bigger, I thought it was my fault for being one of those.

My eyelid lesion started out as a long, flat, skin colored patch. It was slightly wrinkly in appearance, but small, and located on my right eyelid. I believe the exact location is the upper lid sulcus area. (Yes, I looked that up).

The lesion grew a little bigger with every passing year. This year, however, there was a drastic change. Suddenly (and I mean very suddenly), it sprung a wart-like growth. The growth began to enlarge at an alarming rate. In fact, it grew so big so fast that within just a few weeks it had grown down into the corner of my eye. I didn’t delay in reaching out to my doctor about the change, and asked for a referral to a dermatologist since I have an HMO.

Shockingly, my doctor wouldn’t give me a referral to a dermatologist. I was advised to call my eye doctor. This didn’t sit right with me, but I followed the advice.

I called the eye doctor and tried to schedule an appointment to evaluate the lesion. “We don’t do that”, was the response I received. This really annoyed me. They were quick to diagnose it as a cholesterol deposit for many years and now that I have a problem, I can’t even get it evaluated?

I took matters into my own hands and found an ocular plastic surgeon that was covered under my insurance. I made an appointment and advised my primary care doctor without further discussion. It turns out this is the type of doctor a dermatologist would have referred me to for a Mohs procedure anyway.

I am astute enough to know the rapidly growing wart needed removal asap, despite who was paying for it. I am also astute enough to realize that skin lesions that change can be cancerous.

Yes, cancer was on my mind. I even confided in my family members about it. Although the initial surgeon I saw told me it was likely just a benign growth that enlarged because it got irritated by something, my relief was only temporary. In the deep recesses of my mind I still thought about the C word, especially since the wart had become so painful that I considered cutting it off myself.

I just never expected to hear the words “invasive carcinoma”. But, is anyone ever prepared for something like this?

As I sit here now, I highly doubt the lesion was ever a cholesterol deposit, or xanthelasma as is the technical term. Xanthelasmas rarely turn cancerous. In fact, from my research, my lesion didn’t have the characteristics of a xanthelasma. Was it a benign skin tag that turned cancerous? Was it pre-cancerous all along? I do have my own conclusions which I will be sharing here in the future. Regardless of cause, it turned from squamous cell carcinoma into invasive cell carcinoma because of the length of time it went without any form of treatment.

So, what’s next? I have a follow-up with my surgeon in August, and a dermatologist later this year. It’s crazy that I can’t get in sooner for a whole body check. Apparently because the pathology report says the cancerous lesion was removed in total with clean margins, there’s no sense of urgency. Welcome to the American sick care system.

I guess, as you can probably imagine, I do not trust what “they” say any longer. I have always stepped up to find my own answers and take care of myself and my kids. I’ll do that this time too. This is not a situation where it gets cut off and I am healed and move on with my life. It’s actually time for action.

In fact, my research shows that this is a forewarning. People who have one skin cancer often go on to have another. On top of that, people with SCC have an increased risk of developing other forms of malignant cancer.

Hearing the words “invasive squamous cell carcinoma” has, in fact, altered my life completely. I will never be the person I was before I heard those words. But that’s ok—-because I intend on being better. God has now put so many signs in my path, it’s high time I put all of the clues together.

My new newsletter, Skin Wise, is, as you can guess, about my journey with skin cancer. But it’s so much more than that. This is the beginning of a new journey for me and I hope you will join me on it. I’m going to share the details of what I go through, my research, and my plan for healing my body beyond skin deep. I will also share my plan for preventing future malignancies.

My hope isn’t to just share my story, but to help others as well. Healing from any type of cancer is a multifactorial, life-long process—from the inside out. Indeed, I have already started.

Prior to my surgery, I cleaned house. I threw away all my toxic personal care products. Some of them I have used my entire life. But we all know the definition of insanity, right? Also, instead of the prescription antibiotic cream, I healed with plants. At a recent post-op check, my surgeon was amazed at how good the tissue looked.

Our bodies are meant to heal. We can also prevent disease. We can take control even when everything feels so out of control. I believe in this with all of my heart or I wouldn’t be here. It all starts with awareness, and right now, I feel very awake.