Rachel Maddow recently underwent surgery for skin cancer. On Wednesday’s episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, the MSNBC anchor shared that she is “going to be absolutely fine” after having a cancerous mole removed last week. Maddow, who had a small post-op bandage on her neck, told viewers the story of how she discovered she had skin cancer—and how the scare has persuaded her to stay up-to-date with her doctor appointments.
Maddow’s partner, Susan Mikula, was the first one to notice that a mole on Maddow’s neck had changed in appearance. Maddow initially brushed it off as nothing—maybe a sunburn or mosquito bite—but Mikula was “quite determined about it,” Maddow recalled. “She said, ‘No, we’ve been together 22 years. That mole has changed, I know it.’”
Mikula insisted that Maddow ask another person who’s known her for a long time—Maddow’s friend and hairstylist of about 20 years, whom she was seeing for a haircut the next day. At the appointment, Maddow asked her friend if she thought the mole had changed. “She said immediately, ‘Yes. I was going to say something about it myself. That mole has changed, I was going to tell you,’” Maddow said.
That convinced Maddow to see her dermatologist, who confirmed the mole had changed and could be cancerous. “Long story short, Susan was right, Diane was right…. Did a biopsy, turns out it was skin cancer,” Maddow said. “All this to say, I would like to introduce you to my Band-Aid,” she joked.
After a successful procedure to remove the cancerous mole, Maddow’s prognosis looks great. “They got all of it. I’m good. I have clear margins, the whole thing,” she said. Maddow explained that she didn’t actually need any downtime after the procedure but took off for a few days because she didn’t want to worry viewers. “I actually have felt fine since I got the surgery on Friday,” she said, but “I didn’t want to weird you out because of the visual of me having the Band-Aid.”
Ultimately, Maddow decided to come back to work earlier than planned to make a PSA about skin cancer. “I want to use this moment to tell you something, which is you should get checked,” Maddow told viewers. “If you’ve got moles like I do, just get on a schedule with your doctor. Schedule a check now with your doctor. And 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.”