Posts Tagged ‘Mohs surgery’

Three things on Leap Day

February 29, 2020 @ 11:00 am | Filed under: ,

watercolor painting of a green moth

1.

I was looking for something in Dropbox and found a bundle of design elements I bought for my website a zillion years ago. Lots of pretty watercolor images and other goodies. There don’t seem to be any designer credits in the files, though surely there was documentation somewhere? I haven’t looked through all the files—much of it looks like things easily created in Canva now—but there was a folder full of watercolored butterflies, moths, leaves, and other bits of nature. I grabbed the image above to brighten up this post, and it turned into a twenty-minute effort to find a designer name in order to credit the artist. I mean, the entire purpose of a design elements package like this is that you’re allowed unlimited (and uncredited) use of the images. But someone made this art and it bugs me not to be able to say who.

Those lost minutes exemplify my theory that everything in modern life takes a minimum of 20 minutes longer than than you think it will. Especially internetty things. We’ve built a rabbit warren and we’re forever getting lost in meandering tunnels. And every seemingly simple task involves half a dozen steps, at least one of which will rack up your extra 20 minutes.

2.

As of yesterday, we are now a one-vehicle family. Since our move to Portland, I don’t drive much at all. Our old Saturn was out of commission for a long while, but we got it running again last fall and decided not to renew the minivan lease when it expired. This after I did the math and realized just how much each infrequent van trip was costing us each month. I’d rather take a Lyft if I’m going across the river, anyway—I loathe hunting for parking downtown. And we do most of our daily errands on foot now: possibly my most favorite thing of the many things I love about living here. Groceries a block away. Dozens of cafes, pubs, and restaurants within walking distance. Two bus lines moments from our door, making it easy for my older kids to commute to work and school and Powell’s Books and other essential destinations. I could even walk to my doctor’s office if I needed to. I don’t tend to, because it’s next door to a grocery store I like, and the walk home is uphill. But I could.

Of course this means we’re now three seats short for a whole-family excursion, but an occasional rental (or two Lyfts) is still a lot cheaper than keeping the Odyssey.

Scott and I had been worriting over the end-of-lease busywork for a while, and yesterday’s turn-in appointment felt a bit anticlimactic—we’d had no one big family moment where we said goodbye to the minivan that bridged our time between San Diego and Portland. It’s just suddenly…gone. Along with (we just this minute realized) my I’d Rather Be Reading Betsy-Tacy license plate frame. Whoops. Scott’s making a call to the dealer as I type. Fingers crossed!

3.

I got the stitches out of my nose on Thursday! And things are looking pretty good. Still in my jammies this morning so no pics:) There’s one small bump of scar tissue on the bridge of my nose that I’m worried is going to hang out and look like a perpetual pimple, but other than that I’m really quite amazed at how well the incisions have healed already. The scar is a faint red line zigzagging along my nose, and it’ll fade. There’s still some swelling so that my nostrils aren’t in exactly the same places they used to be. In a few weeks I’m supposed to start kneading and massaging the tissue daily to help break down scar tissue and restore the original shape. I’m hoping that means the one little scar bump will flatten out as well? If not, it’s only noticeable in profile. I’ll live. 🙂

I’m not yet able to put sunscreen on it, which means I’m going to have to overcome my aversion to wearing hats long enough to get my walks in—spring has arrived in full force and I need to be out in it! Cherry blossoms, plum blossoms, daffodils, grape hyacinths, hellebores—oh it’s a magical time! Rilla just noticed the neighbor’s clematis vines have climbed into the hedgehog tree. The tree (a dogwood) hasn’t yet begun to leaf out, but its bare limbs are clothed in a green shawl embroidered all over with starry white flowers.

Oh gosh, that makes me want a leaf-green shawl I could stitch all over with little white flowers. —Because that’s what I need: another stitching project. I have so many going at once right now! I spent some time reorganizing my studio this week, and now everything has a place again and I know what I’ve got in progress. A few things are quite close to being finished. Why am I still writing? There’s stitching to be done!

Show-and-tell is my love language

February 24, 2020 @ 6:39 pm | Filed under:

Last week, I had surgery to remove a small amount of basal cell carcinoma from my face. Not my favorite experience in the world, I must say! But not terrible, either. I shared the adventure on Instagram Stories and saved it in a highlight on my profile, and I’ve poured all those slides into a gallery at the bottom of this post.

Short version: I’ve had a small red patch on my nose for a while; I asked a doctor about it 18 months ago and he said it was just a pigmentation change, nothing to worry about; he was wrong. In November I noticed the patch was a bit bigger and it had begun flaking. I asked my new primary care doctor about it, and she too didn’t think it was likely to be anything worrisome, but she referred me to a dermatologist just to be sure. Good thing! He did a biopsy and it turned out to be basal cell carcinoma. That’s the better kind of skin cancer—it doesn’t metastasize—but you still need to have it removed. The most common procedure is called Mohs surgery and it’s a trip! I had it done last Thursday. The surgeon removed a disk of skin from my nose, checked it for clean margins, took another slice, and whew, that was enough to get it all. Sometimes it takes several more rounds to get that clean margin.

Then he did the repair, which is a bananas process! He made a series of small zigzagging cuts all the way up my nose and then shifted the skin down a notch so that the bottom zag covered the surgical hole. Then he stitched me up. I’m on day five now, with stitches running the entire length of my nose. I spent the weekend swollen and bruised, but today the swelling is almost gone and my black eye is yellow. 😉

I’ll have a scar right down the side of my nose for a while but Mohs scars fade to nearly invisible over time. (Could be months or a year, I’ve heard conflicting accounts.) I’m super curious to know what my nose will look like when the dust settles, but for now I’m amazed at how well it’s already healing (even if things look a bit lopsided at the moment), and I’m glad to be cancer-free once more. Sheesh.

(No, really! That’s the short version!)

Instagram Stories version: