trupa, as far as I know, the cancer cells couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. The guy who did the surgery also prepared frozen slides for instant evaluation. Yes, the surgery was done in his office; the woman seen in one picture is a physicians assistant who popped in and out while the cutting was going on. The dermatologist told me that if he put me in the hospital, I would probably develop some horrible infection—that’s the reason for doing it in the office.
jjim, the original lesion was hidden under my hair. I awoke one morning and found blood on my pillow. As soon as I touched the lesion, I knew what it was. (I’ve had numerous skin cancers removed.) The dermatologist uses Mhos surgery, wherein a small area is excised and the margins checked for cancer cells; the theory is to minimize the wound by removing no more than is necessary. In this case, that theory didn’t work out too well. The doctor would make a cut, send me to a waiting room while the excised flesh was examined and would then take me back to the treatment room and repeat the process. IIRC, the total time in the doctor’s office the first day was close to nine hours—he refused to patch the thing until he was sure all the cancer cells were gone. I didn’t actually see the pictures until the entire thing was done—I was very surprised at the size of the wound.
From start to finish, the time span was five weeks. The skin flaps used to cover the wound had to be stretched. As I understand it, the skin will stretch but the underlayer will not. Therefore, the skin had to be cut from the underlayer, stretched, and then tacked down. The following week, I would return to the office; the stitches from the previous week would be removed, the skin would again be cut from the underlayer, stretched, and tacked down.
By the time when we reached the final closure, my head felt as if it had been worked over with a blowtorch—the doctor got medieval on my head, not my ass. Due to my history of drug abuse, pain medication was limited to Darvocet and not very many of them. My darling Marcie had custody of the pills; she kept them in a locked fire safe.
For the rest, I lucked into a tremendously good dermatologist. I picked him from the yellow pages since my usual dermatologist couldn’t (wouldn’t) see me; the earliest appointment I could get from him was a month downstream. The dermatologist I saw gave me his home phone number and his cell phone number; he told me to call him if anything at all was bothering me. Plus, he called me a couple of times a day to make sure I was okay. Not many doctors will do that.
When I saw the pictures, I asked if he had been playing Zorro; he looked a little baffled and then said he hadn’t realized it had a “Z” shape until I pointed it out. Now, two years downstream, the scar is barely visible.
The pictures, I hope, illustrate why one should avoid sunburn at all costs. Tanning just ain’t worth it.