A Melanoma Met or a BCC?

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Look it was obvious it was something. This stupid lesion had sprung up on my chest during a virus back in November 2024. My chest was full of them but only this one persisted. I had photographed it from early 2025. It caused a minor panic attack in Sarajevo when I became convinced it was something very serious and my wife Miras told me I had to forget about it while we were travelling. But I just couldn't forget about it. This was my life.

The derm suggesting it was melanoma during my February skin check had pushed me over the edge. If only she had confidently diagnosed it as Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC) in the first place. Now that would have saved me an awful amount of anxiety, but she didn't see it that way and even challenged the consultant, who said it needed removing but agreed with my diagnosis. You see, a BCC is a very common skin cancer and hardly ever metastasizes, so is far preferable to a primary or secondary melanoma. 

About six weeks after the excision biopsy in March, my phone rang while I was at home. Miras and Raf were with me. They knew it was the result. I knew it was the result. I stepped outside and heard the nurse tell me it was just a BCC. The relief was massive. It meant I hadn't had another primary melanoma or a recurrence for about a year, and I could at least stop worrying, for the moment, about anything undetected in my blood or lymph having taken hold. While it might come back to haunt me one day, this wasn't that day. This was a good day!

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