RELATED: The First Thing Sofía Vergara Did When She Was Diagnosed With Thyroid Cancer. During the opening segment of The Rachel Maddow Show, Maddow told viewers that she was recently at a minor league baseball game with her partner of 22 years, Susan Mikula, who pointed out that the look of a mole on Maddow’s neck had changed in appearance. Maddow says her initial thought was that “I had no idea what she was talking about,” brushing off the warning while joking that Mikula simply hadn’t noticed the mole before. She said she tried to explain it away by claiming it had changed because of a “mosquito bite or sunburn or something.“ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb Mikula was insistent, however, and told Maddow to get the opinion of her hairstylist of two decades. When asked about the mole, Maddow says her stylist, Diane, immediately agreed that there was something wrong. “[Diane] said immediately, ‘Yes, I was going to say something about it myself. That mole has changed,’” she said. “Long story short, Susan was right, Dianne was right,” Maddow explained. “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.” Maddow explained that she had surgery the previous Friday to remove the cancer, explaining her absence the last two nights. She took the opportunity to praise her doctors and said the experience had changed how she would monitor her health from now on. “I had a few days off because I had surgery at NYU Langone on Friday. They’re fantastic. They got it, they got all of it,” Maddow said. “I’m good, I have clear margins and the whole thing. I now need to have everything checked, like, every five minutes from here on out because I do not want to get this again.” RELATED: If You Notice This Mark on Your Nails, See Your Doctor Immediately. Fortunately, Maddow explained that she received an excellent prognosis from the doctors and that she felt so good she even tried to get back to work the same day she had the surgery. “I’m going to be totally fine, but that is why I have a band-aid,” Maddow said, explaining the small bandage on her neck and face. “I actually have felt fine since I got the surgery on Friday, in terms of how I felt, and pain levels and stuff. I could have come back right away. I could have been on the air Friday night. I didn’t do that because I didn’t want to weird you out because of the visual of me having the band-aid.” For more health news sent straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. The news host then took a moment to remind viewers to keep an eye on their own cancer signs and symptoms, telling them to see a doctor at the first sign there’s an issue. “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 said. “Even the most worrying forms of skin cancer. If you identify it early enough, it is now quite treatable.” “Schedule a check now with your doctor,” she urged. “Then when your doctor tells you you’re fine, but you should do this every year, put it in the calendar in your phone for a year from now, and then actually come back and do that follow-up appointment…It’s only by the grace of Susan that I found mine in enough time that it was totally treatable because I have been blowing off my appointments forever to get stuff like that checked because I’ve assumed it will always be fine.” Maddow even took a moment to put the concerns of those who are wary about checkups to rest. “They just look you all over and go … ‘Let me measure. Yeah, still looks the same as last time. Yep.’ They don’t even do anything that hurts when they check you over. It’s the doctor’s appointment equivalent of getting your car inspected,” she explained. RELATED: Al Roker Is Warning Everyone to Do This After His Cancer Diagnosis.
