I am starting to write this in May 2013. In the last 3 months I have been diagnosed with malignant melanoma skin cancer. This is a record of what I have been through so far. This is not a diary account of things so all the dates are as close as I can remember but are certainly not all exact. It is 12 months after I first noticed a new mark on the top of my left foot, 6 months after I was referred to a dermatologist and 3 months after I was first diagnosed with stage 3, malignant melanoma. I have no idea where this record of events will end up, I’m just going to write it first and see where it goes. I initially thought about writing it the night I had my first major operation in this whole process on 1st March 2013. I couldn’t sleep until around 4am that night and I pretty much wrote the whole thing in my mind during those hours – it was bloody brilliant! That was 2 and a half months ago but I haven’t got round to putting those words on paper until now. I have asked myself a number of times why I would want to write it down. Well, I’m writing this for 2 reasons. Firstly, I actually find the thought of writing it very cathartic and positive. Putting it down on paper makes it very factual and in a funny way not as much of a big deal to me. It happened, the specialists were all over it and as I sit here now, it’s been dealt with. Those are the facts. I can speculate about recurrence or survival rates but they are no more relevant than sitting here and deciding what I would spend the lottery jackpot on should I win that multi roll over. (I never bother doing the lottery unless it’s a big roll over……cos £4m just isn’t worth walking to the newsagent for obviously! Mad isn’t it?) Secondly, I am writing it on the small off chance that it will help someone in some way. Maybe someone with a similar new freckle or mole reads it and as a result they decide to go to the doctor’s when otherwise they wouldn’t have. Or maybe someone finds themselves on part of the same journey I’ve already been on and they can’t find anyone to share their thoughts or concerns with. I know that may sound very self-righteous but it is true. If I would have read this story from someone else in June or July last year then I would have gone to my doctor sooner and who knows, maybe we would have got it before it had burrowed down into my skin and started doing its nasty business? I’m not bitter in any way about that but if there can be a small chance of any good coming from this then that’s got to be worth it hasn’t it?

If this account of my journey is going to be of any help to anyone who stumbles across it then I have to be completely honest about my feeling all through this – good and bad. So that’s what I’m going to do. There may be people who read this who think it’s a bit too self-indulgent. That is absolutely not my intention. There are times when I’ve felt a little like that over the last few months and I hope that this comes across at those precise times, as that will then mean I’ve written an accurate record of my journey but writing this account is not in any way for people to feel sorry for me or any other such reason.

Enough of the background and disclaimers and on to the story of the last 12 months.