Amazing, what a real vacation can do for the spirit! Despite two weeks of travel out west and now a short trip to Asheville via GSP (where there are nonstops and affordable fares, even considering the rental car) I am relaxed, resting and writing at the Comfort Inn while waiting for Gabriel to nap before I pick him up from school. I feel as though I've taken a turn in the road, and I'm ready to get on with things.

But that’s hard to do, coming up on scans and a visit with Robert’s oncologist in two weeks. I’ve written before about scanxiety, so I won’t repeat that here – nothing has changed, and from reading posts by others on the Melanoma Patients Information Page sponsored by the Melanoma Research Foundation, we are far from alone in this.

This month, though, we had another reason to be anxious. Robert’s dermatologist last week removed a “freckle” from the back of his leg that I’ve been eyeing for more than six months. He did a shave biopsy of it, and today the results came back: it was a benign keratosis. Whew!