Trusting Intuition

Today as I gave a friend a note of positive encouragement regarding their announcement of being cancer free for a year, I thought about my own brush with this dreaded diagnosis that occurred some fifteen years ago. I was a single mom at the time, divorced and in an unhappy living arrangement. I worked 12 hour days as an oncology nurse, and was in the throes of an overwhelming depression. I always had a small brown mole on my left arm, nothing suspicious as it was only slightly darker than the numerous freckles that sprinkled my fair skin... until one day I noticed it had turned black and was slightly itchy. Being the poster child for skin cancer coupled with the fact that many years were spent in the hot sun at the Jersey shore, (before the awareness of sunscreen), I knew this was not a good thing. I made an appointment with a local dermatologist, who looked at the small mole and dismissed it as a "probable reaction to a hormonal shift." At the time I was not pregnant and certainly not pre-menopausal, and so I said to him, "that may be your opinion, but I am an oncology nurse and would it to be removed and sent for a biopsy." He immediately became indignant, saying, "you nurses are such hypochondriacs," to which I replied, "that may be so, but I will pay out of my own pocket to have it done." The offending "beauty mark," as he called it was reluctantly removed, and I was sent away with the words, "you know insurance isn't going to pay for this." After several weeks of waiting and making "annoyance calls" to the dermatologist for the result, I finally learned what I suspected all along... it was an aggressive form of melanoma. The dermatologist hesitated before he told me that I needed to see an oncologist, to which I responded, "Doctor, do me a favor and don't ever tell a patient again that they are being a hypochondriac, without first doing your due diligence." Prior to the resultant wide angle excision, I kept looking at my young children and thinking that I might not get to see them grow up. I told myself that this was a warning that something in my life needed to profoundly change, or my fears would sadly be realized. For years I listened as some of my patients with cancer, would confide in me what I can only describe as disappointment in the way their life unfolded, something I refer to as the shoulda-woulda-coulda's. Through inaction, into an insight that they knew, but were unwilling or powerless to change,  I saw my own situation in parallel to their stories. Immediately, I resurrected my living situation, leaving an old relationship and making a new fresh start. As the old ended, a new one began and I fell in love in spite of myself. I was lucky that the cancer had not spread, and although my life has had remarkable ups and downs since then, I have resolved to accept what I can't change ( and not be a poor me about it) and change what I can by trusting my intuition... and taking action.