Mohs and waiting rooms

 I HAD Mohs surgery to remove skin cancer Monday. Normally my face hurts people. Now my face hurts. I wore a big scary looking bandage over 10 forehead stitches all day yesterday. But the cancer is gone.

A few months ago I went to a free skin cancer screening offered to Blessing Hospital employees. It was at Dr. Elise Scoggin's office at 12th and Broadway. She came in and looked at my face and said, "Uh oh." Turns out there were two spots that looked suspicious and several other "pre-cancerous" spots. 

All those years in the sun being dumb undoubtedly contributed. Now I wear a hat and use sunscreen liberally. But you can't undo being a beach bum and wanting a sunburn. I should have had this checked out a long time ago.

I came back a few months later to have biopsies done on the two spots, and to have the dreaded liquid nitrogen sprayed on the others. One of the biopsies on my forehead came back positive for skin cancer, one of the common types. So I showed up Monday morning and prayed it wouldn't take all day.

Mohs involves using a local anesthesia, removing the piece of skin and then analyzing it on a slide for skin cancer and to see if they got everything. I was warned it could take all day. Sure enough, it took two tries to get everything out of there and five hours overall.

First of all, Dr. Scoggin and her staff were tremendous. While she was mining for treasure on my head, I greatly appreciated them breaking down the best rides at amusement parks and the horror stories of rides failing and people getting hurt. Educational! They were talking about risks involved and I told them I drive to Hannibal twice a day for work and defy death on a weekly basis. They faked being impressed and resumed talking about all the ways you can die on a roller coaster. My kind of peeps!

Apparently Mondays are Mohs days for Dr. Scoggin. There were seven or eight patients in the small waiting room, most of them older men and almost all of them with spouses. It was fairly quiet but of course there was the one guy a little louder than most. We all had to hear many times about how he had no idea he was going to be there all day. It was clearly explained to him, I'm sure.

I'm going to give Nancy at the front desk a lot of credit. She deals with crabby people on the phone all day. She had to explain many times about getting a physician referral before making an appointment, etc. Also she brought out cookies, really good cookies, and kept the coffee pot brewing. You can have all the highly-trained medical people you want in a doctor's office, but people like her are the glue and she's pretty awesome.

I got done and Dr. Scoggin stitched me up and they put the big bandage on my face and I went home and took a nap. About 5 p.m., the anesthesia wore off, and .... well. Ouch. They suggested ice and Tylenol (no blood thinners). I've thought about taking something stronger but I didn't want to miss work Tuesday, so I sucked it up. And it sucks.

But ... Mohs has a 98 percent success rate in removing skin cancer. So I'm good.Until I get the bill.

I took the bandage off this morning and really, it's not  .... horrendous. Below is the pic, if you dare look. My brothers says floppy hats on the golf course and just tell people I was in a hockey fight. 

Take care of yourselves, people. Even if it's one Mohs stitch at a time.