Rachel Maddow says she had surgery to remove skin cancer
She went to the dermatologist after her partner, Susan Mikula, noticed a change in one of her moles
Aux News Rachel Maddow
Rachel Maddow is back to work after taking some time off to recover. On Wednesday night’s episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, the host shared that she was out for a few days after receiving surgery for skin cancer at NYU Langone Hospital.
Maddow explained that while she and her partner of 22 years, Susan Mikula, were out at a baseball game, Mikula noticed a mole on Maddow’s neck looked a little different.
When it comes to early detection of skin cancer, dermatologists suggest people take stock of any moles they have and come in for a checkup if there are any noticeable changes. The ABCDE method, which stands for “asymmetry,” “border,” “color,” “diameter,” and “evolving,” allows people to track and classify any significant changes.
Maddow approached her hairstylist about the same mole, and the hairstylist also noticed a significant change. Maddow went in to see her dermatologist soon after, and she received a biopsy and a diagnosis.
“Long story short, Susan was right, Dianne was right,” Maddow said. “I went to the dermatologist, she said, ‘Hey, you know what? That mole has changed.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve heard that.’ Did a biopsy, turns out it was skin cancer.”
Last week was when Maddow went in for the surgery to have the mole removed—hence her absence. The surgery was successful. “They got it, they got all of it,” Maddow said.
Later in the show, she continued to reassure her viewers, “I am going to be absolutely fine.”
Though she said she could have stayed out of work for a few more days, she wanted to use the opportunity to stress the importance of regular checkups. “Even the skin cancers that are the deadliest skin cancers in this country, those too are way more treatable than they used to be on one condition: That you get them early,” Maddow explained. “Even the most worrying forms of skin cancer. If you identify it early enough, it is now quite treatable.”
10 Comments
Let me guess, the skin cancer is all Donald Trump’s fault?
Just to expand on the ABCDE:Asymmetry: Put an index card down the middle. Does one side look substantially different than the other? Especially different colors?Borders: Sharp, well defined borders are good. Borders that just kind of fade away or are irregular are concerning.Color: Black or blue are bad. Multiple colors are concerning.Diameter: 6mm. 1/4″. Bigger than the eraser on a standard pencil.Evolution: Does it look different than it did a few months ago? It won’t change faster than that.Here’s a good visual aid:Also, you can laugh at her getting an opinion from her hairdresser, but many of them are actually trained to notice those things in beautician school or take extra classes to learn how because they see areas you don’t see well like the back of your head and the scalp hidden by your hair on a regular basis. Just like Dentists are trained to look for oral cancers and precancerous lesions on routine exams. The American Society of Dermatological Surgeons has a program to train them:https://www.asds.net/medical-professionals/public-service-programs/stylists-against-skin-cancer
I love that we have a real doctor as one of the top Gawker commenters. You’re always a huge help Lizardo!!
I am glad on a regular basis that you continue to stick around, despite… *gesticulates wildly*
It can be challenging sometimes.
Nice to see you’re living up to the “Dr” part of your screen name.
I had a mole in the middle of my back spotted by my massage therapist. Not only could I see it *never* but she was looking at it once a month. My doctor definitely wanted to take it off once she saw it, but thankfully it was benign. I am now paranoid about all my moles. But I have quite a few that are not flat or seem to get weird all the sudden, so I am always asking her to take a look.
Glad they caught it early. When I lived in Arizona it seemed like every white person I knew had alarming looking moles on them. I learned to stay the hell away from the sun without protection.
In college, I saw a dermatologist about an asymmetric mole my mom had found right in the center of my back. She took a little bit for a biopsy and told me that I would get a phone call only in the event that the results came back negative for malignancy. About two week later, my phone rings, and my heart jumps into my throat. I see that it’s the number for the dermatologist’s office, and my heart sinks from my throat down into my stomach. As it turns out, it’s a basal-cell carcinoma, not melanoma, which basically meant that the worst it would do was spread slowly across the surface of the skin rather than penetrate deeper and metastasize to vital organs. I hadn’t even known there were different kinds of skin cancers until the person on the phone explained it to me after informing me of the positive result, and I had assumed that “skin cancer” simply meant “melanoma.” The dermatologist had not informed me of that more likely and more innocuous possibility before leaving me to await the most terrifying phone call of my life.
I had a similar experience to Rachel’s. There was a spot on my cheek (facial, not gluttial) that I had noticed had “evolved”
Went to skin care specialist, they took a sample and said I should call back in two weeks to get results. They called me back in a day or two and basically said “get in in here now”
Went back, they numbed me up and went to carvin’.. Sure I had a bandage for a couple days, a rapidly faded lightning bolt incision line ( which i called the “drunken Harry Potter” ) and a yearly checkup schedule.., but hey. cancer free. and that ain’t nuthin’.