My Nose Gets an Update of Her Own

I had a small surgery on my nose on Tuesday and this is only Friday but I'm having difficulty hanging around being gentle. The process to remove the basal-squamous-carcinoma from my nose involved Swipe, Freeze, Check, Repeat. These are my non-medical terms for it (in case you thought otherwise--ha ha.)

Swipe is when the doctor takes the scalpel and cuts off what he believes will be all of the cancerous stuff on my nose. Freeze is when they freeze the tissue so they can look at it. Check is when they look at it through the microscope and decide if they got it all. If there are basal-squamous cells at the edge, they have to go back until they get a clean perimeter.

It took 3 Swipes before they got it all. The little hole left in my nose is about the diameter of a plump pea says Byron, who was watching the procedure.

Next step was Cover the Hole. This required a little skin graft taken from right in front of my left ear.

Then you have Stitch and Patch. Or Patch-Stitch-Patch. Make a patch, cover the hole, sew it in, sew up the graft site, and patch me up with bandages.

This all went fine. The patch of graft on my nose is lighter than my nose skin so I will have a little polka dot on the left of my nose. I could decorate that with a piercing, I suppose. (Except I'm too old for that.)

Anyway, it's THE BANDAGE that has given me grief. Turns out I'm allergic to the adhesive on the tape and I woke up on Thursday all swollen with puffy eyelids. Happily, the allergic reaction caused the nurse to remove my LARGE clown-nose bandage. Sadly, I have to be more careful now in the next few days because my nose is more vulnerable to disruption.

So, I was set to fly to Kansas City today to be with my 24-7 Prayer mates. But I'm here in Pasadena being gentle instead.

I am accepting this weekend as a gift of rest... but I'm still having a bit of a hard time with it. I can't help but feel a little sorry for myself to be missing out on the chance to be at the Kansas City Boiler Room with some of the best folks around. Many of them have flown in from Europe for this.

The remaining patch on my nose looks like a yellow ball about the size of a gob of chewing gum. It looks like the stuff that people hang posters on the wall with. It's actually sewn onto my nose right over the skin graft and it looks like I've stuck chewing gum onto the side of nose.

This ball patch comes off Tuesday when I go show my healing to the doctor.

And all of this is to say, PLEASE WEAR SUNSCREEN, friends. I've not been a mad sun-worshipper but every minute of over-exposure does finally catch up to us.

Thanks for prayers. I appreciate them.

(Regarding the photo: the sewn-on patch is a little bit scary to look at but here I am anyway, some puffiness still remaining.)

Biopsy Back and I Give My Face Some Love

The lab report came back showing that I have 2 kinds of skin cancer cells present on my nose.

The side of my nose started to bleed spontaneously after my shower on the day we left Tanzania. We flew to London and on to Lisbon that night and next morning but as soon as I got to internet again after landing I asked Mom to book me in at the dermatologist when we arrived in California.

So, yea, skin cancer. Hhhhhmmmm. I have basal and scquamous cells present.

The C-word... Never welcome.

Here are the fortunate things--

We found this very quickly.
The doctor says this is still in the "good" zone, whatever that means.
Removing skin cancer from faces seems to be par for the course here in California.
Basal cells are relatively non-threatening.
Scquamous cells "can be aggressive if not treated" but we are treating them.

I have a pre-op visit on May 5 and surgery on my nose on the 12th. We hope that it will be a small surgery and not require a skin graft. But even a skin graft wouldn't be such a bad deal in the scheme of things.

But, yes, I was teary and shaken to hear the words "skin cancer."

I've not really been a sun-worshipper. I've had some bad burns accidentally in life and those all add up. I've been in a lot of sunshine since I've lived in California, East Africa and Portugal.

I've also never really done much to care for my face. I mean, I do wash it in the shower and I've used mascara and lip gloss for a long time. I haven't had a lot of product for the old face apart from moistureizer. When I was 39, I went to the make-up counter with my big sister and had the lady show me how to use a little foundation. I figured I should grow up a bit since I was about to turn 40.

So my new thing this week is to give my face a little more love. I bought a hair band to push my hair off my face so I can cleanse it properly. And every morning I smooth a nice #40 sunblock for faces on, which I should have been doing for many years. Then I don my lovely new hat to shade me.

Being nice to my face is kind of pleasant. The redness and scabbing is all gone from the biopsy sites and I look no worse for the wear.

Thanks for prayers. Mostly, I feel calm... And a little freaked out from time to time.