What Really Matters

What Really Matters

- Matt Hansen

On the evening of September 14, 2015, I was sitting at home watching TV when my phone rang. Six days earlier, I’d had surgery on my left leg, just above my calf, to remove a large chunk of melanoma, which I’d been diagnosed with earlier that summer. The incision was six inches long and so deep and gnarly I nearly fainted when I saw it for the first time. During the operation, Dr. Robert Andtbacka, a surgeon at the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute, had also removed a single lymph node from my left groin to see if the melanoma had spread, which would make it a much more serious situation.

I wasn’t too worried. I’d always been healthy and active, but when my phone rang, I knew immediately something was wrong. It was Dr. Andtbacka, calling me from his personal cell phone to tell me that the cancer had spread. “We need to get you back in here for another surgery as soon as possible,” he said. But I could hardly hear him. I’d never been more scared.