Skin Cancer Surgery

 As I wrote in a recent post, I was diagnosed for a second time with skin cancer. The first time was Basel Cell Carcinoma. This time was for Squamous Cell Carcinoma. (They are the most common types of skin cancer. If you want to know the difference, the Skin Cancer Foundation is a pretty good place to find information.)

Yesterday, I went in for the surgery to remove it. Everything went fine.

I've done this before, and not all that long ago, so I had a good idea about what was going to happen. I didn't have any questions for the nurse or the surgeon.

This is an in-the-office procedure, at least for my skin cancer. Like the first one, this one was on my scalp, though near the back of my head. I was told to wear a shirt that buttoned, so I wouldn't need to pull it over my head. I have a couple of old button-down shirts in my closet, so I picked one. But first I looked back at the picture I posted on the blog from the first skin surgery to make sure I wasn't wearing the same shirt this time. ("You're ridiculous," said my youngest child when I told them I that I did that). 

I had the same surgeon as the one who did the first surgery. He looked at his work from last time and said it looked great and that he had done a good job. (This was banter, not arrogance. I appreciate a doctor who kind of tests the waters and makes small jokes.)

I sat upright in a chair and the surgeon numbed my scalp. 

"How have you been?" he asked. 

 "Oh, I've been OK," I said. "Except, you know, some skin cancer."

He laughed. "Skin cancer isn't a joke," he said. "But the survival rate is very, very high, especially when it's taken care of early. So it's god that you're here."

He poked around my head a little.

"You have a very tight scalp," he told me. "There are two types of people in the world. I know that sentence can go in a lot of different directions, but in my line of work, there are two kinds of people in the world -- those with tight scalps and those with loose scalps."

I said I assumed he preferred loose scalps, since they were probably easier to work with.

"Absolutely!" he said. "Think of the difference between the scalp of a 95 years and a 35 year old. You, my friend, have the scalp of a 35 year old!"

Like I said, I appreciated some banter.

Then he started the procedure, and in about two minutes, he was done.

He did a procedure called Mohs Surgery, where thin slices of the skin are excised, and then examined under a microscope to see if there are cancer cells present. If there are, the process is repeated until no cancer cells are found. 

As he prepped the sample for the lab, he told me that this seemed like a very shallow tumor, since I caught it early. He didn't think a second round of excision would be necessary. And even better, I probably wouldn't need stitches to close the would. The lab results would be back in an hour.

So I spent an hour in the waiting room. If you've ever been in a dermatologist's office, you know that most of the patients are on the older side. This particular group today seemed to have trouble with their hearing, or maybe with their phones. But in the hour I was waiting, I heard full conversations between parents and their adult children, including some very personal details I probably shouldn't have heard. I also heard a variety of very loud ring tones. And for some reason, someone was doing a google search that their phone was reading out loud. "Searching for...How much cinnamon to add....." No idea what they were adding the cinnamon to. I hope it worked out for them.

After an hour, I was called back in to the exam room. Everything looked great. No further excision needed, and no stitches, either. The whole thing took less than 90 minutes.

When I wrote to you about this a couple of weeks ago, I promised some "handsome photos." But since this is on the back of my head, I can't show you my face and the bandages at the same time. So you get to see my handsome scalp instead. The good news is, as I was sitting on the floor trying to aim the phone at my scalp, my dog Katara decided it was a good time to come in for a hug. So you're not getting my handsome face, but you are getting a heart-warming moment anyway.

So the lesson with all of this is, be sure to keep up your regular check-ups, especially for any and all cancer screenings. Ask you oncologist which ones are important. And when you suspect there's an issue, get it checked out -- early detection is almost always better than later. (Though later is better than never.)

I told you all of that a couple of weeks ago, but it's worth repeating anyway.

Stay well, everyone.