The Importance of Self-Care - Episode 50

A little over a month ago I found out that a biopsy of a mole on my leg came back positive for melanoma. And I was very lucky because they found it in the earliest stage and were able to remove it and I can now say I am cancer-free. But the reality of that situation isn’t that they found it because I was being proactive about my health. In fact, I was just really lucky. This week on the podcast I wanted to talk about how this incident opened my eyes to a whole part of self-care I had been completely ignoring, my physical health. I had gone to the doctor about the bump under my lip in LA, but it didn’t flatten out like they said and I was a little concerned, but also knew they had done a biopsy so it shouldn’t be cancer. I put off going to the doctor for about a year and then when I got plantar fasciitis, I went in to see if I needed a referral for my feet and since I was there, I asked about the bump under my lip. So, the doctor put in a referral to dermatology. I went to the doctor and they found another mole they were worried about on my leg. I had a biopsy done on the mole and it did come back as melanoma. I was able to get help from a friends’ mom who lived a few miles from the doctor’s office and was able to get the mole completely removed. And have since had a cancer-free diagnose from the follow-up biopsy done from the tissue collected during the surgery. This event made me realize I need to do a better job of taking care of myself physically. I haven’t visited a doctor for an annual exam since my son was born almost 4 years ago. I didn’t think I had time to go to the doctor, but I need to make sure to take the time to go to my regular doctor check-up and as I continue to get older ensure I do the additional screening to help find issues before they become major problems. This podcast episode was inspired by this blog post on www.airmantomom.com. This post contains affiliate links Are you looking for a holiday gift for a female veteran you know? Check out my book Women of the Military, if you would like a signed copy please email me at airmantomom at gmail dot com. Get your copy here.