Recently in Skin Cancer Category

I finally got my stiches removed today. Too bad it was one day too late since we had a formal group photo taken at work yesterday - there I was, almost dead center, with a mongo bandage on my nose. Priceless. The sun was probably glinting off the plasic surface, creating a nice focal point for the photo. Needless to say, I was mortified. Dave said I should just have removed it for the photo, but I really didn't want to subject my co-workers to the sight of my stiches. Oh well, I'll look back on it one day and giggle.

As for the actual removal - no novocain, thankfully - and it wasn't that bad. A little pulling and pinching, but nothing horrible. I was willing to withstand a significant amount of pain if only to get that fucking bandage off my nose. I was over the whole "I'm embarrased to have this big bandage on my nose" stage and I moved to the "If this bandage stays on one more day I'm going to be placed in a padded room" stage. I had a constant feeling that I was wearing glasses because of the pressure on the bridge of my nose, and I was endlessly swatting at my eyes to remove those invisible glasses. The bandage adhesive was starting to make me break out and it was quite itchy, not to mention the little cotton fibers from the pad of the bandage tickling my nose. And, as I found out yesterday, waiting in the sun for a half hour for the photographer to arrive, bandage adhesive tends to "melt" in the sun. The damn thing was starting to slide off my nose! I actually left work after the photo was taken to buy new bandages and replace the adhesive-slimy thing on my nose with a new one.

I think the doctor did a pretty bang-up job on the stiching, though. I did take a picture just now, but I refused to take a picture of the area while the stiches were still in. This photo is exactly one week after surgery, right after I got the stiches removed. The nurses in the office told me they call him Doctor 90210 because he does a great job with cosmetic reconstruction after removing these BCCs. The area is still a little red and bumpy, but I'm told there are still stiches on the inside (translation: yuck) that will make the area bumpy until they dissolve. I have to put vaseline or the like on the area at nighttime and sunblock on it in the morning.

Now there's only a couple of months to wait until I do the Intense Pulsed Light to control my rosacea and get rid of my sun damage. Maybe by next summer my skin will look normal again!

The nose knows it hurts.

I made it through my MOHS surgery yesterday - they had to take two slices. It was close to being only the initial slice... after the first cut (and again, I cannot stress enough how absolutely heinous it is to have novocain injected into the side of one's nose) I had to wait an hour for the results. When they called me out of the little waiting room, the nurse happily said, "all clear - he got it all!". I was thrilled - I'm all, "stich me up and get me the hell out of here!". She left the room to find the doc, then came back extremely apologetic, saying that she was mistaken, there are two slivers he needs to take yet around the perimiter. Damn, and I was all excited to be done.

So after more novocain (this time wasn't as bad since I was pretty numbed up already) and a couple swishes of a knife, I was back in the waiting room. Good thing they told me to bring a book - thanks to my waiting time and Caro's Book of Poker Tells, I should rip it up at poker next week.

When I got called back again, this time it was a confirmed "all clear", and I only had to wait to be sewn up. They keep the doors open in the office, and that doctor was running around like the energizer bunny. Apparently a large number of people have some sort of need for MOHS surgery. When he finally ran into the room, amazingly not out of breath, I got even more novocain. Then the stiching began. I have never been conscious for stiches before. The only times I ever had stiches were when I had my wisdom teeth removed and when I had knee surgery. This whole being awake thing was going to be a whole new experience. And it was quite odd. All I felt was a whole shitload of pulling, streching, poking, and wiping. And I don't know what the hell he had to cauterize, but the stench was gross. Kind of like burning hair. It took him a long time to sew it up - he wanted to make sure the scar wasn't going to be visible. Hey, great with me - take your time! Dave said I was getting stiched for about 45 minutes. He fell asleep.

So I got to leave with a big honking bandage on my nose, some gauze bandages, and ointment to put on it. No drugs. Damn. I was supposed to take Tylenol or the like for pain.

I had to go back this morning so they could remove the big honking bandage, check out the area, and put a nice, smaller bandage on it. So now I'm finally able to see without a big white blob in front of my left eye, but it's starting to hurt much more now that the pressure is off of it. It's kind of a wierd sensation - kind of a cross between burning, pulling, and feeling like I got whacked in the face. I may pop a couple of Alleve soon.

I also got the distinct pleasure to see the area - this morning the nurse said something about it not being a very big area and I said I had no idea, I hadn't seen it. She whipped out a mirror and asked if I wanted to. Against my better judgement, I said yes.

Gross.

That's all I'm going to say. I'm going to have to make sure I do not eat before I go about cleaning the area like I'm supposed to. I mean, I'm not really squeamish or anything, I just have an aversion to seeing my own bloody areas. Bleh.

So I go back in a week to get the stiches out. I'm sure that will be a lovely experience - with more novocain.

Now I'm just going to try and keep under the radar until I don't have to wear this stupid bandage on my nose. I feel like a moron, like everyone's looking at it but trying not to look at it.

Oh well, at least the cancer is gone - I'm going to go pop some Alleve now.

Yesterday I had my appointment with the MOHS surgeon.

Apparently, I'm much too young to be seeing him for skin cancer, or so he informed me as soon as he walked into the room. Yea, I think so too, buddy, thanks.

My surgery is scheduled for September 15. They're going to cut a circular slice of my skin with a laser then ship me off to a waiting room. Then he's going to cut the slice into quadrants and test each quadrant for cancer. If there are any quadrants still showing cancer, in I go again to have another slice taken from the corresponding area on my face. This will be repeated as many times as necessary to remove all the cancer.

It may be a long day.

Luckily, the "reconstruction" (i.e., "patching up the hole") is done right after the surgery by the same doctor. And this is all he does - MOHS surgery and post-MOHS reconstruction. So I'm hoping the cancer isn't too deep and I won't need skin grafts or other such stuff.

I have to cut back on smoking before and after the surgery - NO MOM, SMOKING DOESN'T CAUSE SKIN CANCER - but it'll inhibit any healing (especially if I need a skin graft). That's going to be hard, but it also may be a great time to quit. We'll see.

I'm presently a little more worried, though - I found another bump on my face last night, right below the inner corner of my eye. It's extremely small, but it doesn't look like a pimple. I'm not sure what it is, but hopefully it's nothing. Yesterday I asked the doctor about the chances for reoccurance or a BCC popping up elsewhere on my face. He said, matter-of-factly, "You're fair complected and have sun damage. It could pop up anywhere". Great. Bummer I didn't see this new bump before I went in yesterday.

So for now, it's still a waiting game. I'm not too nervous about the surgery yet, but I'm guessing the week of September 12, I'll start to feel some anxiety.

With all of the iMac hoopla going on after vacation, I realized I never posted about my biopsy results.

I have skin cancer.

I really don't think it's as bad as it sounds. But still, those words - SKIN CANCER - have maybe thrown me into a small fit of depression.

It's a basal cell carcinoma - "the kind of skin cancer one would rather have" (as if I'd want to have any) - small growing and localized. It sucks, because my rosacea has calmed down exponentially since I started using Finacea, and my face is finally starting to look much less red again.

I have a consultation appointment with a MOHS specialist on July 11. I'll have to have surgery to remove the cancer. I'm still terrified I'll have a large hole or indentation on the side of my nose. I'm scared that I won't want to go out of the house because everyone will be looking at a hole on my face. Call me vain, but that's how I feel.

Voicing my fears to Dave doesn't help much - he usually tells me not to worry about it until I see the doctor, so he really doesn't want to hear it. He's right, but come on! How could anyone not worry about it? And my mom just lays into me right away about smoking - last time I checked I couldn't really get skin cancer from smoking. I told her I can just thank my fair-haired, fair-skinned, green-eyed Irish heritage for my ability to burn to a crisp every time I go into the sun. And getting lectured from someone who never wore a drop of sunscreen in her life while out in the sun kind of frosts my ass. But that's what mothers are for, I guess. So my only place to really vent about it is here.

At least my computer won't care if I have a hole on my face!

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.