From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is My Unsung Hero, stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

My unsung hero is my therapist, Sarah.

I said, it's okay. I still love you.

You're still my best friend.

So if she hears this, I just want to say thank you.

Today's story comes from Jackie Briggs.

The moment that changed Jackie's life came on a Saturday afternoon in August 2006.

I was attending what was billed as a woman's health conference.

Turned out it was really a pitch for cosmetic surgery, which really irritated me.

But anyway, at that point in my life, I was 52 years old.

And for several years, I'd been working 60-hour work weeks in this high-pressure IT job.

And I had very little time for myself. So I really wanted

to go and hear this one particular speaker. As a few hundred women milled around different booths,

picking up brochures and eating cruditets offered by those black-panted white-shirted waitstaff, this lovely lovely dark-haired woman came up to me and she said,

excuse me, but I can't help but notice your arm.

I had what my boss later described as what he thought was a rose tattoo. It was on my upper right bicep. And I was

uncharacteristically wearing a sleeveless dress that day. Well, this woman who I have come to

refer to as Angela, although I really don't know if that's how she introduced herself or if that's the

name I have since given her, but she asked me if I'd seen a dermatologist about this smallish,

irregular, almost birthmark looking spot, and I assured her I had. She pressed me and said,

when? And I had. She pressed me and said, when?

...