Like a football, both (over)watching

I had my skin cancer surgery yesterday starting bright and early at 8:30AM.  This was to be another “mohs” procedure, something I have had a couple times before.  The doctor cuts a perimeter out around the cancerous area and then tests the cells on the edge to make sure he got it all.  If not you get cut on again until the test is clear.  It’s not a fun procedure and can take awhile since it takes 30-60 minutes to get the test results each time.

Ironically the most painful part of the surgery is normally the injection of the local pain numbing which burns pretty intensely as it goes in.  It didn’t take long into the procedure until my embarrassing, excessive sweating reflex kicked in.  This is something that happens to me pretty consistently in a medical scenario that involves me getting poked or cut on.  It only took a few minutes until I could feel the beads of sweat building on my back and few minutes longer until it started to drip off me.  The nurse asked me a couple times if I was ok.  I assured her I was and this was normal reaction for me.

The numbing solution did it’s job as I couldn’t feel the cuts being made on my shoulder but I certainly could hear them.  At times it almost sounded like a box cutter going through cardboard.  I dared not look at the wound as it was being worked on.  Seeing a bloody hole in my skin would have probably kicked my adverse reaction to near pass out level.

So after round one of the cutting I was sent back to the waiting room to wait for results.  I brought my Warcraft book to read to help me pass the time.  After around a half hour the nurse gave me the bad news that more cutting was necessary.  I returned to the cutting floor and had another sweaty session under the knife. By the time the doctor was done this time I had a circle bigger than the size of a half dollar cut out of my deltoid, thankfully the test came back clear this time around.

They said they would be able to stitch me up around 11, some 90 minutes away.  I used the time to go drive to a near by Dunkin Donuts and read a couple more chapters of my book.   When I returned I had a short wait before they called me in to close up the wound.  More numbing was injected before the fun began.  I literally felt like a human football getting it’s laces installed.  I could feel the skin being pulled tight by the thick thread.  The sound of it was even more unsettling.  Again I kept my gaze firmly directed at the wall, I had no interest in seeing the visual that accompanied the sound.

Finally the stitching was complete.  The nurse applied a pressure bandage and I was sent on my way.  The doctor said I should limit my upper body exercise until a week after the stitches are removed to be safe which means a total of three weeks, a long time but I expected it based on past experience.

At first the surgical area didn’t feel like much thanks to the numbing effect lingering on.  As it faded the weird feelings of tightness, stinging, and burning came rolling in, again, as expected based on my prior experiences.  I tried to find arm positions that minimized the pulling on the stitches, letting my arm hang in a normal position actually was not ideal.  I felt rather tired most of the day and even took a brief nap after reading some of my book.  I did make sure I got something productive done, replacing the battery on my Neato and documenting it for the world.

I have had Cindy playing a little bit of Overwatch on my account.  You may recall awhile ago she was playing Diablo with me.  Well I was surprised that she really liked playing Overwatch.  Last night I set her up with the game on her own pc so we could play simultaneously in a group together.  We played a bunch of games and she did well for somebody new to the game.  There is a TON of stuff going on simultaneously in the game so it takes some time and practice to get acclimated.  I’m hoping she wants to play more with me in the future.

We are still dog sitting Tank.  He seems to be quite content hanging with us although I am sure he misses his normal surroundings and playmate Bowser.  Tank seems 100% fine at this point but the concern is roughhouse play could damage the stitches in his nose, so I don’t know how long he will be hanging around.  I know Cindy likes having him there so I know she is in no hurry to give him back. He certainly is a cute little fella.