My computer went bad and the propane lines were leaking.  In the midst of dealing with those two things we got a phone call that brought the third challenge in 48 hours.

Before we left Ohio to come to Kentucky in May, I had an annual dermatologist appointment at Universal Dermatology.  I say annual, but it was really my first.  I didn’t have any growths that looked suspicious, so I wasn’t in a hurry to see a dermatologist.  Tom has been going for a few years now and it was time for me to begin as well.

My dermatologist was great.  She was quick and efficient.  There was one spot that was precancerous on my forehead and she quickly froze that off.  When she got to my leg, however, she paused.  “How long have you had this?” she asked.

I looked at the small red mark on my leg.  “I don’t know.  I probably just bumped into something.”  The spot was on the outside of my right leg.  I have to contort my leg a little bit to see that area, and hadn’t noticed anything odd.

Dr. Chandler took a picture of it and said she wanted to see me again in a month.  If it was a bump, it would go away by then.  If not, she wanted to take a biopsy.  When Tom and I went in home in June, I went into her office for another visit.  The spot hadn’t gone away, so she took a biopsy.

The Tuesday after we got back from Ohio, Dr. Chandler called me.  The biopsy had come back as basal cell carcinoma.  Certainly the least dangerous and most treatable form of cancer.  But still – a third challenge in those 48 hours.  My reaction was mostly surprise.  I know lots of people who have had basal cell carcinomas taken off their faces, but I’ve never heard of one on the leg.

We discussed next steps and scheduled Mohs surgery for the first available date, July 7.  Dr. Nemers at Universal Dermatology does all the Mohs surgeries on Mondays, so Tom and I had to take an extra day and half off.  We drove up to Ohio on Sunday and were seated in the office at 9:30 on Monday morning.

Mohs surgery is a common skin cancer surgery.  They take off a layer of skin and immediately examine the edges to see if they are cancer free.  If they are, they close the incision and you go.  If the edges are not cancer free, they take off another section until the edges are clear.  When the cancer is on the face, they are very careful about taking as little off as possible.  On the leg, they take a bigger chunk to begin with, which requires less repeats.

The surgery went quickly.  Dr. Nemers is very efficient.  Then they covered up the wound with a dressing and I returned to the waiting room to wait.  Dr. Nemers typically does 10 Mohs surgeries every Monday, so everyone in the waiting room was either waiting for biopsy results or waiting for their own surgery.  We had a variety of bandages covering parts of the body – mostly the face.

Because you are sitting in the waiting room for a while, and everyone is a little nervous, we were all talking to each other.  After all, we were all facing the same thing.  One woman was in for her third Mohs surgery.  She had already had one on her leg and this was the second on her face.  She was the only one who had to have a repeat of the surgery on that Monday.  Everyone else that day was one and done, including me.

When they called me back for the biopsy results, I was glad to hear that the edges were clean.  That meant they could sew up the incision, which took a surprisingly long time.  Dr. Nemers had to put in two layers of stitches.  One layer will dissolve over time and one layer, on the surface, will have to be removed.

After bandaging my leg, Dr. Nemers went over the wound care and follow-up treatment.  The first 48 hours were staying off it and icing it regularly.  After that, no strenuous hiking, no uphill, and no sweating until the stitches came out.  Those directions left out most of the walking I do in Kentucky!  I mean, you can’t even go outside without sweating.  Change the bandage twice a day and wear a compression stocking.

The stitches can come out on July 25, which seems like a really long time for stitches to be in.  Tom will be taking the stitches out and he has been inspecting the incision every night, making sure I am doing what I am supposed to.  The incision doesn’t really look any different now than it did right after the surgery, but it isn’t seeping anymore.  I have been really good about following the instructions because I don’t want it to get infected or have problems with the incision closing.

Overcoming the third challenge was simple with the help of my excellent doctors.  You can bet I won’t be skipping my dermatology appointments in the future.  Obviously I’m not good at recognizing skin cancer on my own.