Rachel Maddow feeling fine after skin cancer surgery

MSNBC anchor and political analyst Rachel Maddow says she has recovered from skin cancer, and urged viewers to add a skin-cancer check to their regular annual physical.

"I do want to address just a quick personal matter here before we go on to the news, if you will indulge me for just a second," Maddow, 48, opened her namesake cable show Wednesday night. Referring to her partner of more than two decades, artist Susan Mikula, Maddow explained that a "couple of months ago, Susan and I went to a minor league baseball game … I am sitting on her right and she is sitting on my left. I caught her sort of … giving me a squinty eye. And I was, like, 'What? What's wrong?' I'm thinking, like, mustard from the hot dog or something. But she poked me in the neck … and she said, 'That mole has changed.' "

Maddow replied it was likely "a mosquito bite or sunburn or something." But Mikula insisted. "She said, 'No, that mole has changed. We've been together 22 years — that mole has changed. I know it.' "

Maddow sought a second opinion from an old friend who concurred, and so, "I went to the dermatologist. She said, 'Hey, you know what? That mole has changed!' I was, like, 'Yeah. I've heard that.' The doctor did a biopsy; turns out it was skin cancer."

The cable news host said she had surgery last Friday at NYU Langone hospital in Manhattan. "They got all of it," Maddow said. "I'm good, I have clear margins, the whole thing. I now need to have everything checked, like, every five minutes from here on out," she hyperbolized, "because I do not want to get this again."

Thanking Mikula, Maddow enthused, "Susan was right! Like she always is! I am going to be absolutely fine. … I actually have felt fine since I got the surgery on Friday," but said she took that day, Monday and Tuesday off over wariness of how viewers would react to her bandage, which on-screen seemed imperceptible.

Even the deadliest form of skin cancer, if detected early, "is now quite treatable," Maddow said. "The advances in the last few years have been leaps and bounds."

She added, "Honestly, it is the easiest doctor's appointment in the world. … They don't even do anything that hurts when they check you over. It's the doctor’s appointment equivalent of getting your car inspected."