Mom's advice

My surgery is tomorrow and I don't know what to expect. I know what the doctor told me, but I'm still very uptight.

My mom told me that she read, somewhere, that melanoma patients should not do alot of reading online. She's right. There is so much information, but without knowing exactly where you stand, all that information is going to do is scare you. I've read some of it and all it has done is made me nervous, anxious and a little confused. If you get diagnosed with melanoma follow my mom's advice, don't look it up on the internet.

Here's an example: I was curious how big my scar was going to be, so I googled Wide Local Excision scar and ended up with a picture of a guy with an incision line that stretched from one side of his neck to the other. He also had a drain. My doctor told me he'd be removing two inches around the site so my scar probably won't be as big as that guy's (and I'm praying that I don't have to have a drain) but seeing his scar just made me even more nervous. I keep wondering, how big is this really going to be? Is it going to cover my entire back?! I know that there is nothing I can do about, and I have so many other scars it won't really make a difference, but I'm still nervous.

I guess I will have answers to all my questions tomorrow. Hopefully everything will be fine and I will recover quickly.