Public Service Announcement - Wear Sunscreen!

For roughly the past four years, I have had a spot on my forehead that is scaly, scabby and gone, by turns. It used to come and go until about a year ago, when it stopped going. So I finally got the gumption to go to a dermatologist just to see for sure what it was. Psoriasis runs in my family, so I assumed that was the culprit. Not so. I was told I had basal cell carcinoma. Read about it here. So this morning was spent having a Mohs procedure. Read about that here.

According to Dr. Perry it was "some nasty cancer." I can only assume that is a highly sophisticated medical term. It was about an inch across and went all the way to the fatty tissue at my skull. It's all gone, and now I just have to recover. Not only was the cancer worse than I expected, the procedure was far more intense, which promises some extreme soreness over the next few days. I won't go into detail, but let's just say that local anesthetic doesn't effect what you can hear happening. Heebeejeebies? Dr. Perry and his nurse were very adamant that I would wake up with my eyes swollen shut and large black eyes. I'm kind of excited to go garage saling in the morning. I'll bet I can get some awesome sympathy deals. I suppose I shouldn't get my hopes up that I can get out of bed. Drugs should help with that...or not.

The good news is that a graft was not necessary, although he was sure this morning I would have a dime sized one. It was kind of weird to see how excited he got as he stretched my skin from one side to the other and up and down, testing its elasticity. I guess it's fortunate to have stretchy skin. Currently, my left eyebrow is poised in suspicion, and the doctor says it will take about six months to calm down. So if you see me, I'm not necessarily giving you the stink eye. It's just my new look. I'm hoping I can get some new shoes to go with it.

Anyway, I hadn't really planned to blog about all this, but I figured it was best that you knew the reason for crazy posts or absence of posts. Also, for those of you that already knew about it, I thought it would be good for you to know the result. Oh yeah, and there was one very interesting point. He started asking about my sun habits in high school and how long I thought this spot had been there. When I asked for his opinion, he thought it was probably in the works about ten years. The worst sunburn I think I've ever had was received the day that Erick and I first noticed one another, as I mentioned in an earlier post. It's just ironic that the day had such a huge impact on the rest of my life. Isn't this world a crazy carousel?

Oh, but if you don't have sunscreen, a hat always helps.