I am a 57-year-old, fair-skinned woman whose family has had incidences of skin cancer, including melanoma. Consequently, I apply sunscreen daily, even when avoiding sun exposure. My last skin-cancer screening by an M.D. in dermatology was about four years ago. No cancerous lesions have ever been found.

Last month, I noticed the sudden appearance of a small (less than 1/8-inch) bluish-black bump on my upper chest. It wasn’t there one day, but it was there the next, and no mole had been there before. Thinking I might have had an encounter with a deer tick, I gently applied pressure with two fingernails, and a small, pinhead-sized amount of black material was expressed. It didn’t hurt, bleed or leave a mark, and all I could see, with help from a magnifying mirror, was a tiny dot in the pore similar to a blackhead. When I realized it wasn’t a tick, I immediately considered melanoma and didn’t to anything further. I’ve been examining the area several times a day, thinking, maybe incorrectly, that if it was cancer it would likely return. It hasn’t, but I do have several cherry hemangiomas on my neck and upper chest, most of which appeared six to eight weeks ago. Could they be related to the bump I saw? Could I actually have removed a cancerous growth so easily? Would a doctor do a biopsy as the situation currently exists? Thank you for any advice and insight you can give.