I am 31F and 9 months pregnant. I do have severe health anxiety (and OCD) and have basically spent the last many years worried about some sort of disease or condition. But that doesn’t make me immune to cancer.
But this time, I am so scared that I can’t get out of bed, I keep walking back and forth saying “this can’t be happening” and I even peed myself from the anxiety (not the pregnancy). I get like 2 hours a night of sleep.
I have melanoma and I know it.
I did have a long stint of melanoma obsessions back in 2020. It lasted basically until 2022. I was obsessing over every mole I had. Never went to get any checked out though due to my intense fear of doctors. I have a lot of large moles and just lots of moles in general. It’s genetic - both of my parents are very moley people with lots of different looking moles.
I have about 3 moles that are 1cm. One of them is under my boob, about 2 inches below my nipple. It’s in such an odd place so I never saw it before I started my mole obsession in 2020. So I have no idea when it actually started growing!! But in 2020, most of the mole was ever so slightly raised with an off centre portion that was just slightly more raised. It was/is 2 shades of brown (which is very common for my moles). I tracked this mole and my other moles for about 1.5 years. Never noticed any changes in it (and I took thousands of pictures comparing them). I moved on to another worry and didn’t really worry about my moles much since then.
A few days ago, I was obsessed about some pregnancy related skin thing so was over analyzing my stomach all day. Then I came across the boob mole again. I noticed that one part may have looked redder (although in hindsight this was likely just the lighting). But it made me analyze that mole again and it has CHANGED! The middle part that was slightly raised became slightly more raised and the entire mole became slightly more raised and “puffier”. Then I compared it to photos I took years ago, and although the mole looks fairly similar, it’s definitely a bit more raised and there’s one part of the boarder where it looks like one skin cell has darkened if that makes sense. And the centre raised portion looks like it’s now covering just slightly more of the mole. And another part of the boarder that looks like it is now slightly indented by like 1 cell. And a couple of teeny tiny black dots on the perimeter (this may have been there before, it’s hard to tell by the pictures).
I don’t know when these changes started. I have some really bad quality photos of it from exactly 1 year ago, and I don’t think it looks really different from the photos taken in 2020. But it could have just been very very slow change. I do remember briefly looking at the mole in June but I don’t know what I discovered. I may have been worried about it for like a minute back then?. I don’t know if I saw big change then. It could have started changing before pregnancy, I don’t know!
And I am 10000000% convinced I have melanoma. I know I do. That’s literally the only explanation for this. And even if it’s not, it’s by far the most likely explanation. And I know a lot of people have seen changes in “moles” but it turned out to not even be a mole. This one is definitely a mole. And on top of that, it’s a big mole and it’s raised which means the melanoma is no longer in situ and has penetrated deeper. I don’t even know when this mole started growing! I definitely had it 5 years ago but it looked similar to how it does now back then (just a bit less raised), so it likely started growing long before then.
My husband says he never noticed anything obvious with the mole (he sees it more than I do). But when comparing photos, it is obvious. The mole is puffier and more raised. And there’s only 1 hair growing out of it, near the edge.
I am about to give birth any day now and I am not even looking forward to meeting my daughter. I am so mad I didn’t see the mole appear when it did or see a doctor about it 4 years ago. It’s advanced at this stage (definitely at least a stage 2 but likely later).
I see my GP this week. I am literally paralyzed. I can’t get out of bed, I can’t eat, I spend all day crying and having meltdowns. I don’t even want to meet my daughter. I’m worried the doctor will look at the mole and be very concerned, which will make me worried more if that’s even possible.
I’ve read scientific papers and every website you can think of. There is NO WAY this mole is not melanoma.
Help. Any reassurance? How can I possibly get through the waiting period while enjoying life? This IS melanoma I just have to try to accept it and hope it’s not too late but it probably is. I can’t believe this is happening.