I have a deathly fear of sharks. I struggle in the ocean, in dark lakes, even in deep swimming pools in which the painted bottom shimmers below like a ghostly mirage, like the pool might really descend deep down into the crust of the earth. Floating above, I stare at my pale feet dangling, like an ambrosial afternoon snack. My family and friends know that when I am in water, I need to be distracted at all times, that they shouldn’t even let me blink too long, or I will see the gaping jaws and jagged teeth rushing at me, bubbling like a torpedo. I have a deathly fear of sharks, which is strange, because it is far more likely that melanoma will kill me.

I go to the dermatologist four times a year for a full-body skin screen. That’s once a year for every family member that has had skin cancer: once for my mother, once for my father, for my maternal grandmother, and for my paternal grandmother. They are all, as you may suspect, ungodly pale. And they have all survived; their cancer battle was no more than a short, out-patient procedure and the sacrifice of a freckle or two. My mother even had melanoma while she was pregnant with me, a secret growing in the shadow of her nose while she was distracted by growing a human a few feet below. She had it removed shortly after I was born. The story ­– which is part of the legend of little me, a collection of tales that make my parents’ eyes grow misty – is that while she was changing my diaper, I kicked her in the face. The force of my tiny, fat foot dislodged the scab that had formed over the extraction site, removing the traces of the cancer and putting the whole ordeal to rest.

There are a lot of reasons why I am not afraid of melanoma. It hasn’t killed anyone I know. I feel like I could get rid of it if I kick hard enough. And, most compellingly, a mole just simply isn’t as sexy a villain as a shark. But there are far more reasons why I should be very afraid of melanoma, which my dermatologist reminds me of each year in quadruplicate.

The screening is much the same each time. I am handed a gorgeous, waffle-weave robe by a beautiful – but not intimidatingly so – blonde receptionist. I change into it and sit on the paper-wrapped chair, which crinkles in a way that makes me feel self-conscious, like other women’s thighs don’t make it crinkle so much. And then, I wait and enjoy the gelatinous feeling of my rib cage relaxing after it is released from my bra.

After fifteen minutes, there is a knock. My doctor pokes her immaculate head in. “Heeeey! You look great. You know, I have some students here. Do you mind if they watch?” I do not mind because my mom is also a doctor who teaches students, and when your mom is a doctor who teaches students, you are not supposed to mind that students all want to see your naked body because you know it is about the learning. I nod politely.

My doctor and her ducklings file in. I slip off my robe, quick and confident; I want them to know that I know that this is impersonal. I need them to know that this is impersonal because if this were personal, my stomach would cringe to the size of a golf ball, thus displacing all my other organs, and I would perish.

I roll onto my stomach and my doctors leans over me. Her exhales mark each place she searches for a small, strange, brown bomb embedded in my skin. “Oh, you guys!” This always happens. “Oh you guys, come look at this.”

I have learned to stop being afraid when she calls her baby dermatologists over. I have learned that’s not how she would tell me that I have some malignant, malicious cells growing on me like barnacles. I have learned that it happens because I am a fascinating study. My doctor has explained it x times and I have forgotten x + 1 times, so I cannot actually tell you why I am such a good specimen. It has something to do with the proximity and visibility of my blood vessels. Something to do with the fact that I have so little color, I rarely recover from any scar. Something to do with the time I got sunburned while having class in the shade on the quad for 50 min on a 70 degree day. Something to do with cancer.

The fledglings gather around. I hear them considering my physicality – they look at the minutia of my body, and I imagine the thoughts in their brains. I feel one light touch; I wonder which of them felt compelled to do that. And then they’re gone. “You’re good!” My dermatologists says as she shuts the door behind her.

I pull on my pants and re-cage my ribs. I move back into my body. I re-attach my skin to my soul. I walk out of the room and schedule another appointment.

Process Notes: I think this was a very cathartic and generative writing exercise. I didn’t even realize how much I had to say until I started writing. One subject that I didn’t really get a chance to bring into this piece –  but would like to – is the phenomenon that doctors, even women doctors, don’t take their female patients seriously. Studies show that women’s complaints are routinely ignored or assumed to be exaggerated. I think that has definitely conditioned me as a patient to act differently to all my doctors, including my dermatologist which, I think you can hear a little in the piece. I would love to bring that in more.