Day 3 - Part II

Today we had the first of our surgical consults with the Park Nicollet team - podiatrist and oncological surgeon.   We are running a parallel path with Park Nicollet and the U of M, in order to make sure that we keep the pressure on to get the cancer removed - and to quickly get into whatever protocol that will be the most aggressive to fight whatever other potential cancer that might be in my body - or to prevent it.   

While we didn't have any surprises with either meeting, it did make everything a bit more 'real'.  At this point, given the size, ulceration and the depth of the melanoma, I'm already at Stage II.  Heaton, the surgical oncologist at PN, put it at about a 30% chance of spreading.   That was hard to hear.  Especially, with that 20/20 hindsight vision -- Chris suggested that I see a dermatologist back in May.  So that sucks. 

Meeting with the podiatrist was a little harder - but also, not a surprise.  Back when he gave me the results of the biopsy - and after laying out the malignant melanoma, he did a soft sell of "maybe I'll lose part of the toe".  Today was a bit more realistic - as it will be a full toe amputation and probably deep into the ball of my foot.  He does specialize in amputation salvage - it was hard to hear.   That said, he said I won't lose any functionality -- unless I was an Olympics-type athlete.  Clearly, that is not the case.  With inserts in my shoe - I'll be walking like normal.   C keeps telling me that tennis shoes are sexy.  I'm not buying it - but I'll accept it.  In the scheme of things, this feels small -- and if part of foot is what I have to lose to not have cancer -- then amputate away.  I do have some fabulous shoes though -- and again, hindsight being 20/20 -- probably shouldn't have spent as much money on them as I did.   In the spirit of finding a less complicated way to live -- the priority on the fabulous shoes, or sweater or any other thing has dropped away to nothing.  All I really want is time -- time with my husband, my girls and my family.   That's about it.  Pretty uncomplicated, when you think about it.