I’M JUST CURIOUS: Ticks and bumps

by Debbie Walker

Ever notice how sometimes things are easier when you put them in your own words rather than maybe the appropriate one? You know, bring them down to your terms.

I think I do it out of a healthy disrespect for the real terms, and sometimes because my words are just shorter. I’ve done some of that here.

I made a long put-off trip to the dermatologist to have a little mole thing on my forehead looked at. They told me just by looking at it that it was a basil cell carcinoma, lot of words for cancer. Instantly that thing reminded me of being in Maine, come in from the woods with a tick on you and all you want to do is get it off you! Well my immediate reaction was: GET THAT THING OF ME NOW! This little mole thing was my “tick” and I wanted it gone now!

Well beside the little tick I had a bump on my upper left leg. It had never been discolored; it had never burned, itched, hurt, changed colors, nothing. However, it had started to grow, and it seemed to be forming groupies around it. So, hey, I’m here I might as well ask him what kind of thing it was. Well you know how it goes, almost like with your car, it could be this or it could be that, usually it is the more expensive one but sometimes you get lucky. So, the doc did his little biopsy of both tick and bump.

Tick test came back next day just what they said it was, and it was going to have to come off. “I’m ready now.” However, we (they) were waiting on the bump’s biopsy that it turns out had to be sent away. Oh yeah, I’m a little nervous now, but better safe than sorry.

The “tick” was no big deal; they took that off in a matter of minutes and a few stitches. But it seems the “bump” was going to send me to a specialist, it was a little on the rare side and had a name I think includes all the letters of the alphabet in it. So, I was sent off to Moffitt Cancer Center, in Tampa, Florida. Probably means nothing to you guys but this place is top of the line all the way.

That little bump that never did anything but grow to about the size of a quarter was going to require an 8-inch by 6-inch cut down to the muscle to get rid of, I’d have one layer of stitches and one layer of staples. This cancer is rare and has a 95 percent success rate. And, for it to be considered not successful only means it would grow back in the same spot. Now as cancers go, I consider myself very lucky.

We all do it; we all put things off, “ah, that isn’t nothing.” I will admit that for a while I had an idea what the tick was and even then, put it off, lack of money, insurances, time from work, etc. As for the little bump, it looked like the most harmless thing in the world and as I said, never gave a sign it being anything other than a bump on the skin. But if you think about it, what was the bump doing there, I didn’t have one anywhere else?

Please take this seriously. My tick is long gone, and my bump was removed December 23, 2008. Yup, I am making fun of them, that healthy disrespect I was talking about, but this is serious. If you have ticks or bumps or whatever word you decide to call them do yourself and your family a huge favor and go now. Don’t wait. If it turns out to be nothing, go celebrate, if it is something deal with it. You wouldn’t leave a real tick on you knowing it was there, would you?

This is one time when I wish my curiosity had won over sooner.

Thanks for reading and if this rings a bell to you: CHECK IT OUT!

Contact me at DebbieWalker@townlinw.org. We’ll just call this my public service announcement.