When I was in my early teens I noticed a dark, paisley-shaped speck on my right inner thigh (above). We had learned how to identify cancers at school, and I was concerned this thing matched the description. I showed it to my Mom and she said nah, it was just a mutant hair follicle. Mom was once a volunteer in a hospital and read and watched a lot of medical articles and documentaries, so I figured she knew.

Indeed, the "hair follicle" didn't change much for 20 years. Then, in just the past few months, it started looking even stranger. I chalked it up to aging. I showed it to Mom again and she said now it looked like something that need looking at.

As I've mentioned before, people are walking the plank at work regularly, so I thought I had better make any doctor visits I wanted to make before the bell tolled for me. Out of pure vanity I made an appointment with a dermatologist to get some moles removed.

I showed an assistant the one on my leg, and she said, "That doesn't look good!" When the doc came in and I showed him my leg his nurse's facial expression tightened noticeably.

"I can't say for sure, but I suspect that is a melanoma," the doctor said. Oh, really? I've heard of that, as in, "Hi, I'm Buck Melanoma. Moley Russell's wart?," from Uncle Buck. How about that! He asked to feel the lymph node in my inner thigh, sounding surprised when he reported to his nurse that it felt normal.

The nurse announced she had already set up an appointment for me. Hmm, this must be pretty serious: They made an appointment without even asking.

At home I Googled and yes, this looked like a melanoma! The pages I read described melanoma as the most aggressive and deadly form of skin cancer. I recalled that Mark Vann, banjo player for Leftover Salmon, died of melanoma. Oh, my God!

As I waited for the next appointment, I thought about a cough I had had for weeks. What if this cancer had already spread to my lungs? Peter Jennings' cancer diagnosis began with a simple cough. The walk-in clinic did a X-ray and no lung cancer, "Take some Robitussin." Whew!

On July 7th I had a biopsy done (outpatient surgery), which means they cut out the offending speck and had it tested. A few days later the lab results were in and yes, this was indeed a melanoma. It was .95 mm thick. Thickness matters with melanoma because 1 mm or more means it's began growing into your body and possibly to a lymph node, where it would spread to other organs. The doctor said that Step Two was that I needed a wide excision, meaning they trim out another 3 cm of skin in case some of the malignant cells had spread invisibly. "You never want to skip Stage Two," the doctor enthused, "Never...never...never...never." How about sometimes? "Never!" He also pitched the idea that since it was so close to the 1 mm mark they could go ahead and remove the lymph node, but I vetoed it. My reading says an excision cures 95% of cases, and in the 5% where there's a recurrence, another excision cures those.

In the meantime a friend of mine's uncle said he knew a guy that had a melanoma on his leg, and it had gotten into the bone and they had to amputate his leg! I was taking this whole thing lightly but geez, if I had waited around any longer I could've really been screwed!

I would receive a Mohs operation. In this operation they cut out the skin, section it, then have each section examined to determine which direction the cancer was going and then cut some more there. This could potentially take up to a week of office visits.

Monday at 6:45 a.m. I went for the first cutting. The surgeon and his assistant were guys my age, which was different. I looked the surgeon up on the Internet and he attended the Wharton School of Business where Donald Trump went, and was an instructor at Boston University, a college where Kennedys go. Sounded like good hands, and I tipped my hat to his scholastic achievements, which he was humble about.

As the assistant was sewing me up, he said, "Hello. Just thought I should say something because I didn't say anything when I came in." I told him that was okay, I was trying not to look towards his end of the table, where my flesh was wide open. He said, "It's not too gruesome." I looked down, thinking I must be sewn up, and it looked like Freddie Krueger had just attacked my leg! "YOW! Eyes back to the wall!," I said. It didn't make me sick, but seeing your own innards is just too freaky. Even seeing my initial biopsy stitches in the shower had nearly made me wretch.

I went back for a possible Cutting Number Two today (Tuesday), but they said that the overnight lab report said I was clear of cancer! So now I've got my final stitches.

It wasn't really that big of a deal, but then again it was. Something tells me that won't be my last experience with that kind of thing, but I hope it is.