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Article snippet: NASHVILLE — Two weeks ago I was reading a book by a brilliant writer whose life was cut short by melanoma — “Dying: A Memoir,” by Cory Taylor — when I noticed a weird little growth on the skin just above my heart. A weird little growth right where long ago I used to slather a baby-oil-and-iodine concoction as I sat on a dorm roof during my college years. A weird little growth that suddenly struck me as almost certainly malignant melanoma. In the midst of a miraculous book, I tend to go overboard on empathy. I walk around inside a little bubble of mirth when I’m reading a really funny essay collection, and I carry a lingering sense of disquiet when I’m in the middle of an unsettling novel. If I read a memoir about dying, pretty soon I will believe I’m dying myself. When that little growth — really, more of an overachieving mole — popped up on my skin, I made an appointment with a dermatologist. It seemed like a good idea to ask a person with an actual medical degree to decide whether the irregular mole just above my heart was anything to be concerned about. A memoir about death by malignant melanoma is definitely not good waiting-room reading in a dermatologist’s office, so I studied the posters on the walls. There were ads for CoolSculpting, which can somehow eliminate a double chin in one hour without surgery; stem-cell injections that “Harness the Power of Platelet-Rich Plasma”; a “dermal filler” designed to “plump” inappropriately plumpless areas of the face; ... Link to the full article to read more