The Spot

A few months ago while driving to work (and looking in my vanity mirror), I noticed a spot on my face. A rather large spot.

I'm not gonna lie. It really freaked me out. I did the lick-your-finger-and-rub-it-off test, but it didn't work. I called my mom to tell her about it. Did I randomly develop a sun-spot or something? I mean, this thing was quite large. How did I miss it before? Did it just appear overnight?

I had a million rambling questions for my mom. Non of which she could answer over the phone. She suggested I call my dermatologist and make an appointment.

Once I pulled into the school parking lot, I started feeling really self-conscious. Are people going to stare at my spot? Do I look like Rodolph, with a beacon shinning from my cheek?

I decided to just 'announce' my new spot rather then wait for people to ask. Throughout the morning, I started conversations like, "I know I have a random spot on my face, but ..." Or "I woke up with this on my face this morning and I have a question for you ..."

By mid-morning, co-workers were teasing me. The following were comments heard quite frequently:

• "Hi Spot!"
• "Hey Lisa, I heard you have a spot on your face. Can I see?"
• "Let me take a look at this thing."
• "Are you going to name it?"
• "So, you just woke up with it huh?"

During my lunch break, I called my life-long dermatologist at the Kirkland Laser Treatment Center and left a message. It went something like this:

"Hi, my name is Lisa Diederichs. I know this sounds really weird, but I woke up with a spot on my face. Like ... I just woke up ... and there is was. I'm pretty sure this isn't normal and I'm kinda scared about it. It's about the size of 1/2 a dime, and it's brown, and I'd really like for it to be looked at. Please call me back as soon as you can so I can come in. Thanks."

The receptionist called me back, assured me that I wasn't in any immediate danger of dying, and made an appointment for me to come in. Their earliest appointment was 3-1/2 weeks away.

What the freak!?! Do I have to walk around with this thing on my face for that long?

Also during my lunch break, I took the above picture and emailed it to as many people as possible. Maybe my friends could tell me what was wrong. Had anyone heard of this before? What could it be?

I was starting to accept My Spot. I was different now. Special. A girl with A Spot. It could be my beauty mark. Like Cindy Crawford. But different. Less brown, and not in a cool place. It was actually right where I have a smile line (aka: wrinkle). When I smiled, it kinda disappeared. That could be cool. Right?!?

I took the kids to P.E. in the afternoon and went to see our school nurse extraordinaire. I asked her to look at my spot to see what she though. I said, "If you think it's Cancer, you can just tell me. I'd rather know!"

Yep ... I was even going THAT far! You see ... I vacillated all day, somewhere in between 'I-Could-Have-Cancer' and 'I-Have-A-Cool-New-Spot.'

Liz (our nurse) took one look at my spot and started laughing. She said, "I think it's make-up."

I quickly replied (defensively, by the way), "No it's not!"

"Do you were brown eyeliner?" she asked.

"Um ... yeah" I quietly said.

She grabbed a gauze pad from her arsenal of medical supplies, put it under warm water and said, "Here. Rub it. See if it comes off." I tried arguing with her. I tried explaining I had OBVIOUSLY already tried everything under the sun to get the dang spot off me. It's with me forever! I had started to bond with it.

Needless to say, with some really hard scrubbing, I noticed part of it flake off. I had to rub really hard, but I'm quite sad to report ... that yes ... My Spot came off.

I was kinda sad about it too. I was no longer the girl with A Spot. Now I was just a girl with a really big red spot on her cheek.

Oh boy ... THAT was fun joke for weeks at school! Not to mention the fact that I had to call and cancel my laser appointment. That was a fun message to leave too.

"Hi, this is Lisa calling back again. I talked to a woman today about a random spot that appeared on my face and I just wanted to let her know that I need to cancel that appointment now. The spot came off."

Awesome.

R.I.P. Spot
You are missed