scratch

A few months back, my wife started nagging me about a spot that was growing in front of my right ear. I have a few freckles and moles, so I didn't worry too much about it. I kept putting it off, but finally I made an appointment with a dermatologist to look at it.

So I go Feb. 2, the doc says it might not be nothing, but recommended it getting biopsied. So two weeks later, I go back and she numbed it up and took a little piece out of the side of my face. I get a call a few days later, the pathologist says to have it removed as soon as possible, its early skin cancer.
Two weeks later , I am in the doctor's office having Moh's micrographic surgery. The doctor is an expert at this, he had just moved into my area and had practiced at the Mayo Clinic. He would shave or cut a layer of skin off, and then a lab tech in the office would analyze it. This took an hour, and then this process was repeated until all the cancer was gone. It took four different slices to get all of it, the hole in the side of my head was about dime size and came close to my skull. He had to cut out a little bit of cartilage of my ear. I went home for the night, and he did reconstructive surgery and closed the wound up with twenty two sutures the next day.

I had the rest of my stitches pulled out last Monday, it looks like it healed nice and I won't have scars. So I hope that everyone will pay attention to little things like this and not procrastinate like I usually do and get it tended to. If I had waited a Little while longer, this would have turned into a much serious problem with chemo and radiation treatments. I was lucky this time.