Frogshake

Cancer. I discovered how scared I am of this disease last Christmas. I was standing in the bathroom, about to change into some comfortable clothes, when I saw something that looked like skin cancer. Fuck. I immediately dashed to my folks who had the exact same reaction (mum tried to cover it up but failed big time). My mind in a fiery haze I rushed to the nearest emergency medical service.

There I was sitting, waiting, going nuts. Is it cancer? It sure looks that way! But it appeared out of thin air, I mean, I didn’t even have a mole there . . . I think . . . or did I? Maybe it’s nothing to worry about! Oh shut up!

Then I started pacing up and down the waiting room which wasn’t much fun as it was quite small. I was so worried and scared that when I saw the information poster about skin cancer on the wall I almost had an aneurysm. After one hour I finally staggered into the doctor’s room and showed him what to me looked like skin cancer. Apparently, at first, it looked the same to him as his first comment was “oh.” It wasn’t a normal “oh” as in “oh, that smells great!” but more as in “oh, what’s all this blood doing on my bedroom floor?”. That was quite a moment.

After closer examination it turned out not the be cancer but something like a “blood mushroom.” It’s probably not called that, or rather it is definitely not called that, but explains the concept rather well. A little blood pushes through the skin, dries and looks really scary, especially if you have many moles. At least that’s how I remember it, but probably got it wrong since a feeling of utter relief exploded in my body and made me dizzy. I cannot even begin to describe how happy and grateful I felt.