skin cancer – Mr Knitter

So 9 days ago I went for my surgery to remove my skin cancer. My youngest sister messaged me with lots of irritating questions, “what time are you leaving for the hospital, what ward will you be on, will you go straight down to theatre when you get there, what is the latest time they take people to surgery, what time is your operation, how long will you be there, will you have many stitches, what’s happening after the operation, is it a day case, will you have to go back, whats the surgeons name” and many many more! She is one of those people who continually ask questions in rapid fire and never really take a breath, and asks many daft questions. I am not the type of person who likes being questioned and find it irritating, and usually close-down or give generalised answers when this happens as I prefer to tell when I am ready and not be under a spotlight.

After the surgery I drove home and replied to a few more texts from my youngest sister and one from my mother, mainly ones of “are you home yet”. Today I finally got a call from my mother asking how I was, but I could tell from her tone she was not really calling to know how I was, then it came. “The reason for my call, can you ask your mate how much a new computer……” When my phone rang, I said to M “oh! here we go! I wonder what she wants this time?” knowing it would be a “can you” type call and not a genuine call of concern.

One of my sisters has not bothered calling to find out, and my little brother has become an ass and does not think he has to ask about anyone, including his father when he was in hospital.

M and I are always suspicious now when we get calls from our family as it is either a call for help or in the case of M’s mum, a mistaken call as she is trying to call someone else. It would be nice to have parents like we see on the Hallmark channel, or to have family like my cousins, but coming from a broken home I realised that would never happen.

So, my surgery went well, and I got away with only 4 stitches. The surgeon said it was deep and he removed skin and what lies beneath in the shape of an ellipse. He said he thought it went well and for me to go back to see him at the end of the month. I removed (yes I did) my stitches on Thursday and boy was I glad to get them out as they were irritating me. I heal really fast, always have no matter the injury. Cuts tend to take about 24/36 hours to fully knit, and usually within a week they are pretty much healed and just faint scars. This is no exception, and on Thursday when I took them out you would not really tell I had surgery. There is a fine scar and very thin mark that will fade to nothing before I go and see my surgeon.

I thought I would share a photo of the surgery, this was taken about 2 hours after. Although 48 hours later I did have a slight black eye as can be seen in the second picture.

A few weeks ago I had two “growths” removed, one from my face under my right eye and one on my chest. I had had them for a little bit and noticed that the one on my face was getting bigger. It was not bit at all, and most people did not notice it, but I did and that was all that mattered. The one on my chest was a funny brown colour and not like a regular mole. One of the GP’s at my surgery (not my regular GP) does minor surgery so I booked an appointment with him and off they came, but I have a lump on the right side of my face about 2/3cm from my right eye that he could not do as it was not a surface lump like the other two, but deep into the skin. The GP told me he would get me an appointment to see a specialist. Just over a week later I was booked into the private hospital to see a consultant in Maxillofacial surgery.

The hospital is only a 10-minute drive (very convenient) and is in the middle of several farmsteads, surrounded by trees turning gold in the autumn sun, and many many pear trees shedding their fruit. The hospital itself is state of the art and appointments always run on time which is a nice change from the overrun NHS hospitals. After being booked in and completing registration paperwork I saw Mr B. He examined the lump quite extensively and quickly diagnosed it as skin cancer, namely basal lymphoma/b-cell lymphoma. He assured me that it was nothing to worry about and he would perform surgery and remove it and I would be left with a few stitches where it was cut out, but as he is also a plastic surgeon the scaring would be minimal. The only thing that I was disappointed about was the scaring, as I do love a good facial scar, also I am a sun whore, but I guess factor 30 or 50 from now on.

I have had many operations in my life and have had 16 (over 8 years) just to rebuild my face including plastic surgery after having it smashed in when I was 17. Yes I picked to look this way ha ha.

I am just awaiting my appointment to go in to have the surgery now, which should be just over a week away.