I think it is time the bandages come off for good. I got the last of the stitches out this week. It’s time my scar sees the light of day in public.
Visited the plastic surgeon about two weeks ago, but it’s not what you might think. I’m not trying to be anybody’s hot mom. I have skin issues. They are issues I’ve been putting off for some time and should have taken care of sooner. I have melanoma on my leg (or some form of it) and I’ve been in and out of the dermatologist for about a month and a half.
I’ve had this large mole thing on my lower leg for about a year or so. It was a weird mole, and I thought, oh well, I’ve got lots of moles. But this one was bigger and kept getting bigger and blacker and red around the outside. I knew for a while I should do something about it, but what you don’t know can’t kill you, right? Not when it comes to cancer evidently. Ignorance is one thing, but dumb can kill.
I had a wake up call when doctors discovered my dad had very early stage colon cancer earlier this year. He had surgery at the beginning of the year and is still recovering. The doctor caught the abnormal polyps on a scan for something entirely different, way up in the top corner of the scan. I am sure God’s hand was in those tests, making sure everything was caught early -- early enough to take care of it with surgery, before he would need chemo. And he had a hard road to recovery, requiring two surgeries, blood clots, and a wound vac.
But it was a sobering event. So I made appointments to get all those fun tests done, like my mammogram. That’s a party waiting to happen. And then I bit the bullet and went to the dermatologist (although I had to wait two months just to get in.) I had made the appointment for a mole removal, but after one glance, the dermatologist said, yeah, we can’t take care of this with a simple office visit. Uh oh. You know that isn’t going to end with a little poke and a lollypop.
After she went out of the room for a few minutes, I caught a glance of a poster about all kinds of skin cancer on the back of the door. The picture of melanoma? Yep, that was me.
You know how the doctor over and over tells you all the worse things that your issue can be? You know how you start to get the hint that your issue is probably that bad thing the doctor doesn’t want to come right out and tell you that you have before the tests are complete? Doctors need to get trickier.
So I got to have a little surgical procedure done on my leg to take off the atypical cells. The little football-shaped incision wasn’t terrible. It was originally about one to two inches long. But the stitches looked really ugly. They looked like the stitches on the side of a football, only black. Actually, they looked a lot worse than they felt. And the scar probably would have healed up better had I not worked out as much as I did and pulled the stitches so much. I guess I just have a thing for Billy Blanks. That and my life does not allow me to sit on my butt for more than 15 minutes at a time, unless I’m driving to soccer practice. That takes 30 minutes – one way – up hill – both directions.
But the ugly scar turned out not to be an issue when the results came back and the dermatologist told me that she didn’t take enough. I had to have a second surgery. And because they needed to take such a large chunk, this time I had to go to the plastic surgeon. Fabulous. I always wondered what the waiting room would look like at a plastic surgeon’s office. I don’t think I have fancy enough jewelry to sit in a plastic surgeon’s waiting room.
But the waiting room was pretty much empty the times I was there. I didn’t have to wait in the waiting room long. I did the surgery at his office, and got to be awake for the whole thing again. It wasn’t too terrible. Dr. Orchard was the plastic surgeon and I would highly recommend him. We talked about midget football during the whole procedure because his kid is out for football, as well. Evidently all football coaches like to yell and nobody’s kid gets to play as much as their parents think they should. Imagine that? However, I could have skipped being awake for the part where he cauterized the wound. Nothing worse then smelling something burning and know it is you.
I don’t know if I should say I officially had skin cancer. I think the plastic surgeon put it best. He said with melanoma, it is not really black and white. What I had is more in the middle of the greys. I don’t have to have any kind of lingering treatments. But I do have to go back to the dermatologist a couple of times a year so she can keep an eye on me. Clearly she will miss my witty repartee while under the knife. Even during surgery I can’t shut up. I think that’s also why I don’t come out of my massage appointments as relaxed as I should. I must always bring the comedy.
The whole skin cancer thing is not unheard of in my family. I remember that my grandpa had to have little skin cancer things burned off his face when he was older. He farmed his whole life and I’m certain I never saw him take a break for sunscreen, and certainly not moisturizer. And one of my sisters had to have a patch removed from her neck. She also had to go back for seconds for surgery. She also thinks that was just fantastic.
I can’t sit here and blame all the years I suntanned, or the fact I never was slathered with sunscreen growing up. I think I seriously laid out in the sun for hours in high school and college coated with baby oil. Talk about cooking in the sun.
But it is what it is. I’ll deal with whatever future skin issues I have as they come along. Things could be so much worse. In fact, my difficulties seem so little and minor compared to the huge challenges so many people face. And they do it with such patience and peace, persistently facing whatever challenges God passes their way with a Christian attitude.
It’s an attitude I hope I can pattern my own after. Of course, I also will add a few jokes here and there. I can’t help but bring the comedy. Life goes better with a little flavor, no matter what you are served.
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