Horrible anxiety, what should I ask the doctor?
Hey folks,
I am not sure if it's a good place to write, but I wanted to share my experience and get it off my chest. I (29M) had a small mole combined with dermatofibroma for approx. 10 years by now. Two years ago, I started doing more regular skin checkups as I have a fairly light skin. Late last year the mole was flagged as slightly suspicious and it took several dermatologists to assess it as it caused quite some confusion.
Overall I went to see maybe 7 or 8 different specialists, and the opinions were always 50/50. Some of them considered it suspicious, some of them said that it's nothing to worry about. This year I finally got it removed because it was causing me way too much anxiety.
Two weeks ago the results came back, and the histopatology doctors assumed it to be a atypical melanocytic tumor that they considered to be a regressive melanoma (because of the nearby fibrotic tissue) in pT1A stage. It had 0.7mm thickness, negative PRAME, Less than 1 mitosis/mm², clear margins and was removed in its entirety. The diagnosis came with a note that there were no definite signs of regression, no ulceration, etc. Basically, as good as a diagnosis can be considering the first part of it. A part of me is even still coping that it was a false positive because of the result ambiguity.
I will be having a second surgery to excise some more skin around it soon. However, I am stuck with a terrible anxiety. The doctor who saw me for the results didn't explain anything to me; only mentioned that at this stage, further organ scans, biopsies, MRIs etc are generally not recommended, and I simply need to observe my skin regularly in addition to removing a larger margin "just in case". Admittably I was in such a shock that I also didn't think to ask for any details. I simply booked an appointment and turned into a vegetable for 2 weeks. I am overthinking every single mole on my body even though they were checked relatively not too long ago.
This week I will be seeing the doc again (hopefully it will be the same doctor who cut it out in the first place and actually saw it in its original state) for the second surgery and want to ask my questions then. For those of you who also struggled with the anxiety: what questions are good to ask?