Squamous Cell Carcinoma on Foot

It is commonly believed by doctors that skin cancer in usually not found on the feet because they covered by shoes most of the time. This is what I was told by several doctors, over the years, that I had made appointments with to see about a mole that was growing on my foot, right in-between my toes.

I had first seen this mole one day while I was examining my feet. At first I passed it off because I have freckles on my feet and in-between my toes, but this one was different. It was puffy like a mole and had a soft brown fleshy color. Then I looked at it again and I thought, now I don't remember this one ever when I was a kid, like I remembered the other freckles on my feet. I thought that maybe it had just grown because I know moles can do that over time. There was another funny thing about this mole though too, it was on top of a scar. Then I remembered that I had stubbed and cut my foot about two years ago in the garage on an old car part laying on the floor. I know I should not have been barefoot in a garage with car parts and oil and other chemicals all over the place, but I had just run in there to get something really quick. Anyway, I looked at the mole and thought I better see a doctor about it.

At the time I was 22 years old and I didn't think cancer could get me yet. Even though I knew that my dad had had two precancerous melanoma type moles on his back removed in his twenties. I did see a doctor about it immediately and mentioned my father's predicament and my genetic disposition to skin cancer, and he said to keep an eye on it to see if it got any bigger but that skin cancer was not usually found on the feet but on the back, shoulders and face most times.

So I went on with life, still worried about it, but I had to go on with my life. Then when I noticed it started to grow I went to another doctor to see about this mole and he would not refer me to a dermatologist to have a closer look because this doctor was under the same impression as the one I had seen previously. That skin cancer on feet is very uncommon because that area is covered from the sun most of the time. The mole was only about the size of a lentil so I could see how the doctors may have not been alarmed by it, but I most certainly was. Over the years I kept asking about it every time I saw the doctor about anything, but it had stayed relatively the same size over this time so there was even less alarm.

Then, as sometimes happens, I was blessed enough to become pregnant. Throughout all those doctors visits during my pregnancy, most of all my questions were about the miracle of life that was going on and my baby but I still threw the troubling question about the mole in there all the time because I was not giving up. They always replied in this time of pregnancy that they could do nothing so there was no point in checking it out. If I did have something wrong with that mole it would have to be dealt with after the pregnancy because the stress caused by surgery and the pain medicine used during surgery would harm the baby and pose a threat for miscarriage.

This was fine with me at the time because I did not want to mess around with anything having to do with miscarriage, so I forgot about the mole for awhile. Even though it was actively growing again, which is very common for moles and freckles to grow especially during pregnancy. I also could forget about the mole because all I could think about was the baby of course, but when I was four months postpartum the mole started to flake and bleed. A dead give away of skin cancer, but I thought maybe I had caught it on something. That's what I told myself because I didn't want what I feared to be real and I was too busy with the baby stuff.

Then, I went for my postpartum check-up at nine months with my regular doctor and we discussed the mole once again among other things. The same response about lack of skin cancer on feet was given, and by this time the mole had stopped bleeding too. So, discouraged, I was planning on seeing another doctor about it and low and behold, here comes another baby. So I am a busy woman, and no one will even discuss this mole during pregnancy so I wait. I put it in the back of my mind.

Before I had my kids I used to cry to my mom and say, "I have cancer", and she would imply that I was over reacting over such a little mole. So it was bothering me for years, but when started having children they gave me some freedom from the worry. Finally, it is six years since I found the mole and I am 28.

My youngest child is one year old so I am somewhat passed the postpartum period and I go for a routine checkup with my doctor. This time I have a badly ingrown toenail as the chief complaint, but of course I add in the mole topic. The doctor says he will refer me to a dermatologist for the toenail. I'm in, I think to myself. I go see the dermatologist and he fixes my toe and I show him my mole. Well, I can take a sample if you want he says, but skin cancer is usually not found on the feet. I tell him I would really appreciate it if he took a biopsy just to be safe.

Two days later I get a phone call and the dermatologist says that it is a squamous cell skin cancer tumor, which of the two squamous cell cancers it is the more aggressive type to grow and spread, damaging healthy tissue. It would have to be removed immediately. I was not relieved to finally know what I had known in my heart for so many years and no one had taken an interest in. I guess at this point I was just happy persistence paid off, and of course i was very scared.

I went to the skin cancer doctor who would do my surgery and she was a little put back. She could not believe how young I was to have this kind of cancer, as it is found on older people in their fifty's and sixty's that had worked in industrious jobs their whole lives. She said I must have gotten into something while barefoot. She said I was lucky that I had kept on it and that it was caught when it was. It was in an active phase at the moment and if I had gone another year I would have lost some toes and a good portion of my foot. Worst case scenario, it could have metastasized.

You can only see a small portion of the tumor that looks like a mole on the surface of your skin. There is a larger part of the tumor under the skin with tentacles. Like an iceberg minus the tentacles. She removed the tumor with a technique called "mohs" surgery. This is where they take slices of all the tumor they can see and then you go wait while they look at it under a microscope to see if they got all the cancer. They will then go back and cut surrounding healthy tissue to make sure they got it all. This is so the doctor can remove as little tissue as possible to save the patient from disfigurement. I ended up having to go back for more cutting because there was still some left after the first try. Then I went out in the waiting room with all the other people with open wounds waiting to see if their cancer was fully removed. It sounds morbid, but it was really gratifying. Everyone was more than happy to have half their ear or nose, or foot, partially gone because at least the cancer was being removed.

When I went back in the doctor's surgery room she said it had already been six hours so I better be sewn up, but it was believed all the cancer was removed. I hope it was, goodness. The doctor took a chunk of skin above the hole in my foot the tumor left and turned it around, just like some nose surgeries where they take forehead skin and turn it around on the nose to cover lost tissue. It was sewed strategically in place and I was told this would take awhile to heal, being on my foot were there is poor circulation and lots of movement. I would need to elevate it for the swelling or it would pop open, and to stay off my foot for awhile.

I had a two year old and a one year old pretty much on my own the whole four months it took the wound to heal. It did pop open and bleed many times because I simply could not stay off it, but eventually it healed together. About a year later I could walk on my foot pretty much normally.

It is a year later and I am glad that mole is gone. The years I worried about it. My foot feels a little weak on the bottom and it swells at the end of the day but I can walk and I have my foot of which I am very grateful.

There is a chance of recurrence and that bothers me but I try to be as optimistic as possible, even though I know if it comes back I will loose much more of my foot. My fear is that there is some left inside that the doctors won't be able to see until it has spread and I have full blown cancer. I know I am worrying too much about a little skin cancer, but that cancer was on me for six years and I worried about it the whole time and I worry about it still. I just try not to worry about it, to keep shoes on (flip flops don't count), to stay out of the sun as much as possible and try to keep my immune system up by eating right and exercising.

However, it is in my opinion along with many other people's I'm sure, that doctors should listen more to their patients complaints of symptoms and not assume they are self diagnosing themselves when they are explaining symptoms. This is what I think happened in my case. I don't like to speculate, but this is the attitude I picked up on from a lot of doctors during this whole ordeal. I never doubted any of these doctors abilities. I feel as though I witnessed their oversight or hesitation, which is nicely putting that there may be some neglect among health care providers. This may be because doctors believe people don't know what they are talking about because they are not doctors, or that the patients are flat out lying to get medical treatment for some reason. They may also think that the patient is paranoid about medical conditions because of all the access we have to medical information in recent times via the Internet. This makes it very hard for anyone to get quality, timely medical treatment, and this is when the model is preventative care.

A patient, or person, knows intimately their own body better than anyone, even the physician, and that should be accounted for. In other words doctors and nurses should listen more to the patient. This is just in my experience and I don't know for sure why I was shrugged off by so many doctors about this mole. All I can think is that they just didn't know about cancer on feet or they thought I was overreacting. I don't dislike doctors, they are some of the most bravest and courageous people in this world, but I was and still am frustrated about the whole ordeal.

People have be in charge of taking care of their own health and push to get answers if they want to get better, or to even know what is wrong with them in the first place. Like they say, you have to be your own health advocate. This is something that I didn't know before but do I know now. I wish that this was not the situation within health care, but it seems to be in some cases.

I wish people could go to the doctor and be taken seriously and given the time and attention to address their health problems so they don't become life threatening and expensive for everybody involved. I want people to know that cancer is not restricted to certain areas of the body. More and more people get cancer of all kinds everywhere and it is scary and life threatening and should be handled that way.

Most of all, I want people to know that you can get skin cancer on your feet.

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