11 September 2001

Who will ever forget the 11 September 2001? I won’t.  It was the day I was told that a mole removed 10 days previously was a malignant melanoma.

We were living in the south of France at the time and used to endless days of hot sunshine when we’d relax around our swimming pool. I had always been a sun worshipper but was cognisant of the dangers so tried to sunbathe sensibly. In addition, when we moved to France, we got into the habit of regular skin checks at a local dermatologist. Shortly after my 50th birthday, I noticed a very dark mole just under my chin. It was the very dark pigmentation which alerted me so I made an appointment at the dermatologist and had the thing removed within a few days.

When I got the results, I knew the significance of a malignant melanoma and immediately assumed that my life was to be foreshortened. The melanoma was 0.45 mm deep – a 'debutant' they called it but another deeper slice was taken off to check whether the cancer cells had penetrated deeper into the skin. As this was being biopsied, I had a radio (X-ray) and an echographie (ultrasound). The biopsy and the other tests all proved clear and I was told that early detection had allowed full treatment by cutting off the tumour at a very early stage in its life.
Regular visits to dermatologists followed and I was particularly impressed with the l’hôpitalisation du jour at the 6 month point when I was examined by three doctors and had several potentially dangerous moles removed.
As far as the French health system was concerned, the danger had passed and the important thing was to look for any new problems ; when I came to the UK, however, they were only interested in following up the original problem.

More recently, I had cause to visit an ENT specialist and ended up having an MRI scan. This indicated a pigmented node near the site of my melanoma so, in light of my history, I was referred to another dermatologist. This threw my mind back two years and again, I was faced with an uncertain future. As it turned out, the pigmentation of this node was explained as fatty tissue on a lymph gland and all the tests indicated everything was normal. Accordingly, I am on two month review and am just beginning to adapt to the long term once again.
Whilst medically or surgically my story has little content, the psychological impact was significant and caused me to do a lot of thinking about life and what I wanted from it.

Like many people, I suppose, I didn’t appreciate life until I realised that it was being threatened - death was never far from my thoughts. Two things in particular were of help. First of all, my death is not the worst thing that could happen to me. In order of severity, one or both of my children becoming vegetables would be the worst thing followed by the same thing happening to my wife. After that, the death of my children then the death of my wife would be worst. Even before my death, my becoming a vegetable would be worse. So, putting my death in context, it is quite far down the scale of the worst things that could happen to me. Everybody will die, it’s just a question of when.

I think the other positive aspect which came out of this is the realisation that life is too short to worry about trivia ; the important thing in life is your family – not jobs, not the pursuit of power or money and not materialism.

Reflecting back to France, one of the most important things we did when moving there was to learn the language ; to live in a foreign country and not be able to understand what’s going on around is crazy. Whilst my French is not scholarly, I was able to communicate and understand what was going on and what was being said at all times. My advice for those living there is to get to grips with the language if you haven’t already done so.
The French medical system is regarded as one of the best in Europe and I have no complaints at all about the way my case was handled.

As far as the sun is concerned, there is too much advice around nowadays to ignore. When in France, be like the French – don’t do the "mad dogs and Englishmen" bit and sit under the midday sun. Use lots of high protection cream and wear a hat. In Australia they refer to it as slip, slap, slop. Slip on a T-shirt, slap on a hat and slop on the cream !
                                                                                                         

                                                                         John

ABOUT MELANOMA

BACK TO EXPERIENCES

BACK TO INFORMATION PAGE