Hello, I am an idiot. Albeit a very lucky, cancer-free idiot. →[More:]

This is a story about ruling out malignant melanoma.

It all started on Memorial Day weekend, when I stubbed my toe quite badly -- so badly that it bled. (Middle toe, right foot, for the record.) Because it bled, I spent some quality observation time with said foot that week, consisting of a daily regimen of band-aid changing and inspection.

Fast forward a week. I'm sitting with my feet up on the coffee table and happen to look down at the wounded foot. Right there on my tiny little pinky toe, there's what looks to be a scab. "Hmm, that's weird," I thought to myself. "I don't remember hitting that toe as well. How'd I get a blood blister?"

After several days, it hadn't changed any. I picked at it a little bit, but it didn't really feel like a blood blister. I soaked it, but nothing happened. I couldn't examine it very closely. Why, you might ask. Well, I challenge you thusly: YOU try getting your eyes close enough to the tip of your pinky toe to focus on it, then report back. Ask me 'why' then.

So anyway, I tried to put it out of my mind.

And here's some important back story: About five years ago, I had a mole removed from between two toes on the same foot. The biopsy proved it to be normal, but the dermatologist counseled me to be vigilant, and to take anything on the feet seriously for the rest of my life. Did you know that "foot melanoma" is the deadliest form of cancer? Neither did I, until the dermatologist put the fear of god (and feet) into me.

So. Last week, it became pretty clear that the blood blister wasn't a blood blister, but was a mole. I went to the doctor -- pretty huge, because I hate going to the doctor. I explained that I had thought it was a blood blister until it didn't go away. She pushed on it, said that it didn't "blanch" (i.e., fill with blood after being depressed), which indicated that it wasn't being fed by capillaries. Which indicated that it was indeed a mole.

She wanted me to go to the dermatologist the very next morning to have it looked at, to "rule out malignant melanoma." Whoa, that was scary. I couldn't do it that morning, though, and had to settle for the week-long wait.

So I'm sitting in the exam room this morning, waiting for the dermatologist, and trying not to puke from anxiety. The RN came in to prep my foot for the excision. He sat down and looked at my toe and said, "Huh. That looks like a blood blister." And I'm like, "THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT!" and told him the story of the mole's appearance.

"Did you try to take it off?" he asked.

"Uh, no," I said. "The doctor told me it might be malignant. I was afraid to pick at it."

"Okay," he said breezily. "We'll just have the doctor take a look at it."

So a few minutes later, the doctor came in and said "Hey, that's a blood blister." And she scraped at it with a tongue depressor, and it was gone.

And that, my friends, is the story of the benign, $30 blood blister.