D-Day, Part 2

Well, today I had my appointment with the dermatologist.

Yes, my primary doctor's office sent the referral. At the last minute. Bastards.

In addition to the 4-5 odd months it took me to get an appointment, I waited another 45 minutes past my appointment time to finally see the dermatologist. No biggie, I guess - at least they had my referral.

First the nurse asked a couple of questions, including "As for the rosacea - is today a good day or a bad day?" "It's a good day", I said. OK, so when the doctor comes in, he reads my file, and says,

"So today is a good day for your rosacea?", frowning as he peers at my face.

I say, "Yup"

He replies with, "How bad is a bad day?"

"When I have a bad day, it looks like I'm either ready to explode or like I've been baking in the sun for awhile"

He asked if I was still using the Metro-Gel he prescribed for me the last time I was there. I told him it just didn't work for me. He gave me a prescription to try something new - Finacea - but it'll probably dry my skin out pretty bad, given I've got dry skin to begin with. Hey, I'll give it a whirl, why not? I also asked him about whether or not the IPL would benefit my skin. Well, it will get rid of some of the redness, but won't help so much with flushing (from heat, etc) - which at this point may just work for me. It will be $1500 for 6 sessions, and he even told me he'd write a letter I can send into the people who administer our FSA plan to clarify the treatment. Hopefully they'll accept the diagnosis and I'll be able to use the FSA to pay for it.

As for my bump - unfortunately, it's not rosacea-related. He said it looked like a small basal cell carcinoma (as in SKIN CANCER) or an enlarged oil gland. The only way to tell is to biopsy it. So they did.

OK - I've had novocaine for dental work before, no big deal. But having novocaine injected into the side of my nose was excruciating! Oh, that was nasty! It was kind of that feeling where I felt I had to sneeze but couldn't, then my eyes started watering like niagra falls and snot was gushing down the back of my throat. Ugh. Luckily I didn't feel the second injection. The novocaine was working its way down to my upper lip at that point, and my lip felt like I was giving an Elvis-like sneer. Very odd.

So the doctor does a shave biopsy - it didn't hurt, but the sight of a razor blade descending on my face was enough to make me tense up pretty good. He told me to relax, that I wouldn't feel it - and I didn't - but I had to close my eyes to get away from the sight of the razor blade. Very unsettling. Then they put ointment and a bandage on it.

I did talk to the people who do the IPL, then, and they were also nice enough to give me the insurance "codes" for the treatment so I can call Cigna, give them the codes, then have them tell me whether or not it's valid for reimbursement from an FSA account.

Actually, everyone in their office was very nice and helpful.

I went back to work afterwards, but on my way home, I peeled off the bandage. All I saw was a little red dot. Not bad at all. I thought it would be worse. Ha! Apparently I'm partially blind or the lighting in my car just sucks. When I got home (with some Chinese food to self-medicate), I looked in the mirror, and there's a round "hole" (no better word for it, I guess), a little smaller than the diameter of a pencil eraser. The red dot I saw was probably where they injected the novocaine. Where they did the biopsy - it's probably gonna leave a nice little scar. I'm heaping Neosporin on it, hoping to keep scarring at a minimum. But as the novocaine started wearing off, it started stinging a bit, so thankfully the Neosporin is the stuff with the pain-relief in it.

I'm not sure when the biopsy results will be back, but they told me they'd call with the results. The question now is - do I check my messages when we're on vacation next week? Do I really want to find out the results while I'm on vacation? I want to know, but I don't want to ruin vacation, either.

Maybe I'll just wait and see what happens.