MOHS Blows in These Foolish Things

Yesterday I had mohs surgery on my shoulder. That nasty ol’ squamous cell bugger had gotten bigger and crustier since the original derm did the biopsy. I can’t believe how fast a fucking skin cancer can grow! Watch your skin, people! It’s scary!

So, my friend C. came and picked me up and we drove the 40 minutes to the special dermatology office where they were doing this thing. Y’all. C. is such an amazing friend and I’m so lucky to have him. He INSISTED on picking me up at my place and driving me there and sitting in the waiting room until the whole thing was done.

We had enough time to go to a Starbucks and get some coffee and also enough time for my Valium to take effect (I was skurred) and by the time we got to the place, of course there was some issue regarding my insurance when I tried to check in…so much panic took place, which of course voids out all of the mellow from the Valium.

The thing about Mohs is that they essentially take a scalpel and scoop the shit out of your skin and then they send you back out into the waiting room to wait and wait until the scooped out junk is tested and viewed and whatever else they do to it back in some lab hidden away. And then if it shows there’s more cancer floating around in there, they go back in and slice more chunks of your body out!!

And after my first round, I go back out to the waiting room where C. is having business phone calls at full volume! Ugh!

Now, I love C. like crazy, but the dude can be super annoying and I felt so bad for all of the other people sitting in the waiting room having to listen to these business calls, one right after the other. But I was also so grateful for him taking me and waiting for me, so what could I say? I shushed him and he did lower his voice, but… yeah. It came right back up after a while.

Two good things happened after about an hour:

(1) The nurse came out and told me they’d gotten all of the cancer out on the first try!! And
(2) The insurance finally came through - thank goodness!

So I went back to the operating room and the doc (and yes, in case you’re wondering, he was freaking HOT, just like ALL my docs are) took his time sewing me up with two sets of stitches - one set on the inside of the wound and one set on the outside. I guess this is to minimize a raised scar. The outside stitches will disintegrate after about a week, I think. And the inside ones are supposed to be “massaged” out after about a month. That’s gonna be interesting!

And it looks like I’ll have about a 6” scar on my shoulder, which, I don’t care as long as this nasty skin cancer is gone, gone, gone!!

Again, wear your sunscreen, kids! Honestly, the doc told me that now that I’ve had this big ol’ squamous cell carcinoma the likelihood of more cancers popping up is like 40% (which makes sense because I had a basal cell carcinoma pop up last year, remember? It was tiny, though and was scraped and burnt off).

After it was all done and I was all sewn up and patched together, I took our sweet but loud C. to lunch for getting me to and from surgery safely. We had good old Mexican comfort food and my belly was fat and happy.

Then home to take my Tylenol and rest for a bit.

So far so good. I was allowed to take my bandage off today (after 24 hours), but I haven’t yet. I’m going to do that tomorrow morning when I shower. Confession: I didn’t shower today because I slept in a bit and then had to get ready for a video interview. I figured since I didn’t work up a sweat or anything that I was okay to not shower and mess with my incision.

Lots more to say about today - I’m right in the middle of heavy negotiations for this new gig I’m pretty sure I’m starting soon. Fingers crossed for the best possible outcome!

Thanks for all the good Mohs juju!
Love you to [sliced-up] pieces!
GS