it's the eyes

Thanks for all the kind words. This skin cancer thing is a strange experience. On the one hand, there's really no such thing as good cancer, and I was certainly a little freaked out to get a piece of registered mail telling me I have it. On the other hand, most people talk like non-melanoma skin cancer is no big deal. They chop it out and you get a quarterly skin exam. Just par tof "getting older."

But, I'm still concerned. Because I'm under 40. Because I'm skin type III (rarely burns--I never had a sunburn until I was in my 20s). Because I have dark hair. But I don't have brown eyes, which puts me in a risk category. I'm not sure my eyes are blue or grey or some kind of off-green:

Regardless, they are a marker for at-risk for skin cancer.

But I'm surprised because the bump that turned out to be cancer was seen as nothing to worry about. My massage therapist (trained to spot questionable marks) said it looked too symetrical to be a concern. Even the chief of dermatological surgery said it didn't look like anything to be concerned with. He still chopped it off and biopsied it (which was sooooo gross because I could HEAR it being sliced off--I nearly hurled). And now I'm freaked because I know there is cancer in me and I have to wait five weeks for it to be taken out.