The Other Side

Below is a link to the University of Maryland Medical Center regarding skin growth and pigmentation disorders. I wanted to give you some information about spots you might have or see that are not cancer. There are pictures at the bottom that show the obvious difference with melanoma. I still would have any of the ones on the left checked out to be safe.
http://www.umm.edu/dermatology-info/other.htm

Moles that are present at birth and atypical moles have a greater chance of becoming malignant.

I picked out this one particular sentence at the bottom of the page. If I have heard it once, I've heard it a million times...people assume a mole is nothing because they have had it since birth.

So what do you do with all this info? This is just for awareness. If you really do some searching, you can see that only a trained professional can determine if a growth or mole is of concern. Even dermatologists use a dermascope to really check things out. I have said it in a previous post, but Brian had a handful of spots removed that came back the opposite of what we expected...a few that seemed to fit the profile of melanoma, or at least atypical came back clear...then a few spots that they were sure were clear showed up with melanoma cells. If I accomplish anything this constant lecturing, I pray that none of you will ever have regrets for not checking your skin or having a spot removed.

There are different types of melanoma, and of course Brian's was the invasive kind, the most deadly. Melanoma is considered almost 100% curable if found early, which makes our story even more devastating.