The appointment with my primary care physician (PCP) was for a routine physical. I expected a clean bill of health. After all, I’d had no issues and was having the physical as part of my New Year’s checklist, along with getting my car’s oil changed and switching out my furnace filter.
I told my doctor I was between gynaecologists because my former OB-GYN hadn’t been able to answer basic questions about the postmenopausal symptoms I’d been having. I asked for a referral, but given it would take four months or longer to see a new OB-GYN, my PCP suggested she could perform a pelvic exam, along with a pap smear and cervical swab, just to get me up-to-date on all routine tests.
As she completed the exam, she asked if I was aware of a large freckle on my labia just outside my vagina. Not being a contortionist, I wasn’t aware of this strangely shaped grey spot that my doctor photographed in order to show me.
It looked like so many other age spots on my arms and legs that have popped up over the years as a result of days in the 1970s sun, before any of us used sunscreen. Still, my doctor suggested I see my dermatologist soon.
At the dermatologist’s office, she also sho...
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