Monday, September 14, 2009

The Band aid is off . . .


Feels like I have worn a band aid on my nose forever. It started with a trip to see Dr. Scott Miller, in the MetroPlex, on June 10th, who removed a growth from my nose and did a biopsy. I had the growth come up just a month earlier, thinking it was a pimple or a boil. I unwisely waited to do anything because we were to attend our son's wedding in Bulgaria the end of May. The biopsy revealed it to be a squamous cell carcinoma, so Dr. Miller referred me to see Dr. Patrick Walsh, a MOHS surgeon. Dr. Walsh had done surgery on my HD's nose a few years earlier.

On August 10th, Dr. Walsh did the MOHS surgery, he took a sampling and checked it in the lab, finding that he needed to take another sample. After the second one, he got all of it. The wound was pretty deep and has taken awhile to heal but finally, today, I got to leave the band aid off.

Now it just has to heal completely and hopefully the Mederma cream Dr. Walsh recommended will help minimize the scarring. It looks so much better than it did right after he did the surgery. There is a small indention – more of a flat spot but not nearly as bad as I was afraid it would be. My “trouble maker” friend at the Senior Center told me just to fill it in with a little play dough!!!

Guess I will probably have a small “beauty spot” or a battle scan. When people asked me what happened to my nose, I told them I had a fight with two dermatologists and they won. Actually, I am the winner by catching it early, knowing what to watch for now and heeding warnings to use sunscreen and wear protective clothing when in the sun.

I am very pleased with my doctors to go from this after the surgery:

 to this:
 

2 comments:

  1. Looks a lot better! :) You have a heart shaped beauty mark on your nose. JRT

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  2. It definately looks the best I've seen it since it first showed up! I'm sure you are really happy to be without that bandaid!!

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