Not a fun cut, Forgot this funny story

by Duf Anything and Everything

So yesterday was my MOHS procedure to cut out yet another spot of skin cancer.  The appointment was first thing at 8AM.  They got me in the room pretty promptly and covered my upper body with sterile dressing and tape followed by covering the general area of the cut with orange iodine.  The procedure starts with the doctor injecting the area with numbing solution.  After a few minutes the cutting begins.

He always says I should let him know if I can feel anything so he can inject more if needed.  I always seems to feel it so he stopped to  inject more a couple times.  The sensation of having your skin cut off is never fun, even when numb.  Evidently there was a lot of bleeding going on.  He had the nurse applying a LOT of pressure at certain points as he used a cauterizer to stop the bleeding.

So he cut out the basal cell cancer and they applied a temporary pressure bandage.  The next step is they test the perimeter of the skin to ensure all of the cancer cells are gone.  After hanging in the waiting room for maybe 15-20 minutes they said they needed to cut again, fantastic.  There was only a small amount they had to remove this time but in total I had a hole in my forehead about the size of a nickel.

Instead of just closing the wound right there they threw another bandage on it and said I should come back at 11 to get stitched up.  This happened previously as well, I don’t quite understand why they don’t just stitch you up immediately however I knew the routine by this point.  I hopped in the Prius and headed to a nearby Dunkin Donuts.  I then just parked the car and sipped my coffee as I listed to a podcast to pass the time for close to an hour.

So getting closed up is often the least enjoyable part of this process.  I once again had to request additional numbing as I felt the needle getting threaded through my skin more than once.  The sensation of having the circular wound pulled tight into a line makes you feel like a human football.  The doc said he had to make sure he was applying tension in the right way so it doesn’t pull up on my eyebrow, which would give me a permanent skeptical expression, which may be appropriate anyway.

I was glad when the final stitch was pulled tight.  A massive pressure bandage was then applied which I am still sporting today.  I was told to minimize my exertion for 48 hours and more or less be careful until the stitches are removed in eight days.  They said to not get the bandages wet for the first 24 hours that they are required to be on.  I managed to shower around them.

I got back to the office around 12-1.  The numbing was still in effect, it in fact had spread to the top of my head.  When I went to scratch my head it felt like I was scratching a piece of cardboard, I couldn’t feel it at all.  However as the afternoon went on the numbing faded and the soreness and stinging was intensifying.  It got pretty intense, I was considering heading out early but I popped an aspirin which at least took the edge off the pain so I stuck it out.   Despite not going to the gym I felt pretty tired and wiped out last night, perhaps just the body’s reaction to getting cut on.  I switched over to extra strength Tylenol which seemed to do a better job of masking the pain.

I got a call from my neighbor who was at work.  He said he locked his keys in his car and wanted to know if I could jump start one of their other vehicles so his wife could go get him.  There was a complication, the car with the dead battery was in their garage so it had to be pushed out so I could jump it with my truck.  Cindy was giving me a hard time about it since I wasn’t supposed to exert myself.  I assured her that pushing a car backwards is not nearly as difficult as she thought.

So we got the big Lincoln out of the garage and I hooked it up to the Tacoma.  Our initial attempts to jump it were not successful as the motor only turned over weakly before stopping.  I wasn’t sure if it was a juice thing or the terminals being pretty dirty.  I decided to go get my personal power center that I bought a few years ago for race timing.  One of it’s abilities is as an emergency jump starter.  Our first attempt with it again failed but then after I rotated the cables around some more to hopefully get a cleaner connection the car fired up.  I was glad we were able to help out although the neighbors will need to be replacing the battery in that car asap.

I forgot to mention an awkward, funny gym story from Tuesday.  I was in the stretching room doing sets of push ups.  As I finished a set a woman that was on her back stretching complimented my form and how many I could do.  As I looked up to respond to her I see that she is holding her right ankle up to her ear during the exchange.  I immediately felt awkward but said back, well I wish I was that flexible. She said she has always been very flexible in a way that contributed to the awkwardness.  She continued to hold the pose as I turned the other way to finish my remaining sets and exit the room.

I am off Friday and Monday.  I took Friday off to take care of whatever remains with prep for Katie’s baby shower.  It’s going to be the most people we have ever had at the house by a factor of two or three.  Cindy said there could be 35-50 people.  The logistic part of my mind immediately jumped to the difficulties of 50 people divided by one guest toilet.  Sure we could allow people to use the master bathroom as well but the idea of all of these people, coming from the outdoors where the party is being held, trampling across our bedroom carpet to relieve themselves just is not appealing.  I guess we could lay down some sort of runner through the bedroom if need be.

Of course the house is in a chaotic state with all of the party prep going on which never makes me feel good.  I am looking forward to the event being in the rear mirror so things can return to a more orderly state.  By taking Monday off I hope to have plenty of time to make that happen.