When the doctor leaves her personal cell phone number in her voicemail you know that the news cannot be good. I paced the house for four hours waiting for the return call. I called my husband and warned him. I called my sister. She came over. She made me dinner. I have a nice sister. She held my crying baby while I got the news. Cancer. Melanoma. Badness.

     Then I got the good news. Melanoma in situ. It had not spread. It was just hanging out on my arm very superficially. It is completely and totally curable with surgery alone. Then I thanked my Maker for the urge I had to go see the dermatologist in the first place. I thanked Him for giving me that new little freckle- the one I thought was a new mole that had showed up out of nowhere in the part of my hair. That one isn’t cancer, but the one I had been watching on my arm was. I had been watching that mole for months and thinking to myself- you know, that looks funny to me I ought to make an appointment. But then I never did, because I was so sure it was all in my paranoid head. But then getting a new mole was strange enough to warrant the call and the appointment. Now I am going to have lots of appointments. My dermatologist and I will become very good friends. And as of Monday I should be cancer-free. Thank you, Jesus, for sending me in to the doctor before the cancer spread.