Feel sick, letter from hospital after biopsy, does this mean I have it?

[Usgvgs]

I can’t get through to the hospital or my GP. Been trying all day after getting a letter today.

I had a mole removed from my back in the middle of September. Today I have a letter asking me to attend an appointment on 6th November. Nothing explained in the letter no mention of results. I am a lone parent and have no support I am terrified about what this could mean for my very young child.

Please can anyone help? I don’t have the NHS app and have tried calling the GP to see if they’ve had anything back. The letter says it I cannot attend and don’t tell them then I may not be offered another appointment and will be referred back to my GP. I feel sick and so scared and alone.

It is very upsetting.

I have been in the same spot and was so anxious like you, I posted on here.

I had pre-cancerous cells in the womb.

I had options and, for various clinical reasons, went with having a coil fitted.

That was three years ago, it is checked regularly but when I posted on Mumsnet-on another name- I was absolutely sure, as sure as can be, that I had something that would kill me in a matter of months. My life hasn't changed at all.

Please, please try your very very best to stay calm. There are a lot of things it can be other, other than someone telling you that it is very serious.

A betting man would not take the bet that it is something terribly serious because there as so many other things that it can be instead.

What trust are you with? My NHS app only shows GP stuff, but anything that has to do with consultants like dermatology (recently diagnosed with a BCC on the back of my neck), endocrinology, gynaecology, etc., is on my MyMFT (Manchester) patient portal.

Good luck and try not to worry yourself silly, and phone them tomorrow! 🤞🤞

In your NHS app under documents you may find a Dermatology letter with some more information eg for clinic appointment after biopsy/histology results available

Your GP themselves are not necessarily going to know more than you either at this point- as the hospital specialty did the biopsy, it’s ‘their’ result to deal with

Try not panic, I know easier said than done

They will give you your results at the appointment and suggest any treatment necessary. It will probably be OK, stop worrying in advance.

@LBFseBrom it seems strange to have a face to face appointment if it’s nothing

@TheNightScentedStock thank you so much for your message x

In my slightly different case - a lump in my lip behind a freckle - it was to say everything was fine, check it had all healed nicely and to bollock me into wearing sunblock year round, including one on the lips.

They should have

You will likely be in and out in 5 mins

The follow up would always be with the department that performed the surgery, not your GP. Don’t panic until you know. There is absolutely no point in asking people on here!

You’re spiralling @Usgvgs.

You’ve gone from needing to attend an appointment to dying and not being there for your child.

I know it’s difficult but you need to stay in the moment and focus on facts. The facts are that you have an appointment to attend. It’s natural to be worried but your response is disproportionate.. do you suffer with health anxiety? Can you access support for that if you do?

Wishing you well. Try not to panic if you can.

I hope it is benign. If it's not, melanomas are treatable and treatment is improving all the time. Decades ago it was all about going wide and deep and now there is stuff like Mohs surgery which takes the minimum of skin while checking for clear edges.

I have had loads of suspicious moles removed and nothing has showed up though I have stressed waiting. I live in a country with the world's second highest rate of skin cancer.

I did have two basal cell cancers removed from my face with Mohs surgery and it's been all good for years after - I just have two almost invisible scars.

I have melanoma. I don’t think you would get the results of a biopsy via the NHS app. It’s almost exclusively for primary care. I’ve had many biopsies and I’ve never had the results via the app. It’s always face to face, regardless of the results.

Who is the appointment with? Is it the consultant dermatologist? Or someone else? I would say that personally because they have gotten you in quickly (1 week for an appointment, even as someone with confirmed cancer, I’d say that is fast, I often wait 2-3 weeks for appointments), I would prepare yourself and the questions you might have if the biopsy has come back saying it’s cancer. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s melanoma. It could be something else, which isn’t nearly as worrying.

It’s better to go in prepared with questions than to go in having no idea. When I got my biopsy results, I just happened to be in hospital for another appointment. I had two cancer nurses literally track me down and hustle me into a side room to deliver the news. I was then give CT and MRI appointments in the next week and sent off immediately to have bloods done. I was totally unprepared and had no idea it was coming. It’s definitely better to be prepared. And if it turns out to be nothing, then what a relief!

Fwiw, I was diagnosed 2 years ago with metastatic melanoma that had spread to my lymph nodes. I’m still here! I won’t say it’s been a walk in the park and I have lasting disabilities as a result of the treatment, but treatment so far has been successful. I have another 18 months to go and if my scans show no cancer when I’m done, the 10 year survival rate for someone like me with quite advanced melanoma is 90%. I am back to work. I hiked 12 miles the other day. I live a pretty normal life.

Ive been on the end of having results with the "please present at this appointment" and no indication.

I never worry until am actually told something to worry about. Some times I forget.

Sitting there right now frantic isn't doing you any good and going through the what ifs. It actually isn't.

I had this and went to my appointment terrified. It was a total waste of time, they just wanted to discuss things with me and didn't even have the results yet. Another one came through a couple of weeks later, went in again, this time to a different section covered in cancer posters. I was seen 1.5 hours late. And told my results were clear. Why they can't just call for these things I don't know

@mindutopia the letter is dated 23 October and my appointment is 4th November. They said to call if I hadn’t heard anything and I don’t get why they wouldn’t give results first

The GP won’t be authorised to tell you anything - that’s down to the team who treated you. But try not to get ahead of yourself. Did you have surgery to remove the mole ? Could it be that this is a routine appointment to check the wound and make sure all is well ? If the surgery was six weeks ago I think you would have been contacted before now if there was anything serious.

If it’s any comfort to you I had a mammogram in 2024 and got a call back within three days because the scan was suspicious for cancer. When I went back for the follow up scan I was told I likely had breast cancer and had several samples taken for biopsy. The appointment to confirm the results was just over a week later. IME they don’t hang around.

My mum had this.

Turned out it WAS melanoma. They booked her in for surgery to remove more of the area where the mole was, and also some lymph nodes.

Then it was all gone.

Try not to worry - my mum was treated very quickly. They actually removed the mole the day she attended for her very first appointment.

If it is melanoma, there are still good chances of things being fine.

I had melanoma diagnosed after a biopsy, it was at an early stage, and they recommended to remove another centimetre of the surrounding skin to be on the safe side. After my skin healed from that, I just had yearly check ups for a while, everything has been totally fine since.

It might be worth taking a friend to the appointment, I found it helpful to have someone with me to make notes of information.

Wishing you good news

My friend’s experience is that she had a phone call with an appointment within 2 days of the biopsy when her lumps were malignant. I would also be reassured that they’ve said they’ll discharge back to the GP if you can’t make the appointment; they wouldn’t do that if there was something of serious concern I would think?

Such a horrible situation for you to be in. Really hope you get some answers soon x

Agree. I have the NHS app as well as the patient portal for my local hospital group. Appointment letters and results of diagnostic tests etc, do appear on there, but not until they have been cleared with the consultant. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer none of the test results appeared on the app until they had been discussed with me at clinic appointments.

OP, even if your mole was cancerous, it’s most likely that all they would do is check to make sure they’d removed it all, do a full body check for any other moles, and that would be the entirety of your treatment.

I know loads of people who have had skin cancer. Not a single one of them has actually even needed any treatment other than the mole removal. It’s incredibly common and rarely serious so you really need to stop panicking. You’re not going to die.

@TheLastSilverSaint thank you, I have no experience of this so this is reassuring

I had an ultrasound and one hour after the ultrasound I had a lady from the GP call me and tell me I had to see the GP asap. She wouldn’t tell me anything but booked me in to see the gp for the next day. I logged into the nhs app and it said ABNORMAL see GP in capitals.

I completely freaked out, I’m in my 30’s and I was convinced they had seen cancer!

The GP calmed me down, explained it was a polyp with a pretty low risk of cancer, but best to get it removed.

It was a benign, they removed it pretty quickly and I’m absolutely fine!

With all fairness, they may have all had carcinomas and no melanomas.

I have a carcinoma in situ and I'm not that worried. If I had a melanoma, I would be.

(Apologies OP)

"when you could have it checked with a GP"

GPs are medical consultants in their own right but in primary care, (not dermatology). They are ran off their feet. I appreciate that it's a pain gir you yo get to a hospital appointment but GPs can't take on follow ups for every specialty as well as their own.