Patty Anderjaska has told her son that his timely arrival may have saved her life. (Cattlemen’s Ball photo)
Cancer diagnosis combined with good news
Everybody has heard one of those dark jokes that start out with a doctor telling a patient, “I have good news and bad news.”
Patty Anderjaska of rural Palisade actually lived one of those jokes, and it wasn’t funny.
In 2001, Anderjaska, now 59, noticed “this ugly mole on a mole” on her upper right arm. “I just kept telling [my husband], Jon, the next time I go to the doctor I’m going to have him look at that.”
She put it off for more than six months, until other biological matters intervened.
“I have no doubt that God said, ‘If you’re not going to the doctor, we will get you to the doctor.’”
When she finally saw the doctor, it was due to well-found suspicion that she was pregnant with her fourth child.
She said to the doctor, “I think I’m pregnant. She said, ‘What’s that on your arm?”
The doctor took off the mole that day and had it biopsied. It turned out to be malignant melanoma — skin cancer.
And that meant conflicting feelings.
“You’re excited to be pregnant, but then you’re scared,” she said. “Before I knew that there wasn’t going to be any more treatments, you’re like, ‘What’s going on with my body?”’
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