Freaking Myself Out Over My Toe

I plan to go to the gym tomorrow morning, but it'll be a quick routine. I have a sudden need to see my dermatologist and got an "emergency appointment" because of something I read on the internet last night before bed. Naturally, what I read was so disturbing that I didn't really get much sleep. The article had the intriguing title, "A Bruise on This Woman's Fingernail Turned Out to Be an Aggressive Form of Skin Cancer."

Now, I don't go to nail salons or even use nail polish, but I do have a few issues with my nails, specifically my toenails. I have dry scaly skin (ichthyosis vulgaris) and extremely sensitive feet with loose ligaments, so my feet are always encased in socks and footwear. But I make a point of looking at them every now and then after a shower when I'm rubbing the scaly skin off before I put my clothes on.

I had to check Google images and even though my toe doesn't look as ominous as those that appeared in the search engine to have been marked with a big black Sharpie, I have a distinct dark line running from the cuticle to the edge of the nail. The two black pin specks are new. Ugh. (The photo doesn't really show how distinctive the line is.) I've also had some rough skin and itching on that same big toe. My dermatologist attributed that to eczema, which is a common enough skin ailment. But of course, in researching Subungual Melanoma, I read about Squamous Cell Carcinoma (Ronald Reagan had it on his face). SCC is often mistaken for eczema because of the thickened dry itchy skin. Ugh.

from: apma.org/Patients/FootHealth

I've had this itchy toe for a few years now. Luckily, if it is SCC (because I'm going to make the dermatologist test it just to be certain), it's not likely to spread and has a 95 percent cure rate if caught early. But it'll have to be excised. And I'm still not completely healed from the mole removal done last October. My skin discolored and the resulting brown spot is twice as big as the original mole!

As to the weird dark line on my big toenail: it's been there a few weeks. At first, I thought it might be a bruise from kickboxing the Nexersys, but bruises tend to dissipate after a week or two. This has not. Treatment, if caught early, is excision, naturally. Some people lose the entire nail in the process. In advanced cases, the digit gets amputated, as long as the cancer has not spread to other organs.

There are other reasons I might have a dark line on my big toenail, but they sound equally nasty: fungal infection, nail bed infection, overgrowth of nail tissue, or SCC. This is all happening to my hapless right foot, the one with the bunion and hammer toes that spasm and want to cross over each other. Yes, it's the foot that had the schwannoma (a benign tumor that wraps around a nerve) that had to be removed from my ankle nearly 30 years ago. And yes, it's the foot with the big black flag-shaped birthmark right under the ball joint. That doesn't seem to have changed at all so I haven't worried about it. Of course, having a black pigmented birthmark or mole (congenital melanocytic nevus) is always a concern but the cancer risk is considered low. Whew!

Here's what a search will turn up for Subungual Melanoma images: