It's a short journey to crazy from where I live, anyway.
After several months of pointing out "my funky mole" to everyone, including lucky random strangers, I felt a sense of urgency to get it addressed. Death Partners couldn't get me in to see a dermatologist- even with a history of funky moles that turned colors and got removed by previous random dermatologists. I even got my awesome Nurse Practioner to send a strongly worded referral, but they still couldn't get me in (in less then 9 months). After the urgent whispering of 20 generations of German peasant ancestors in my ears became too loud to ignore, I made an appointment out of death partners at another dermatology practice. Wow, they got me an appointment in a week. I walked in, said "take it off", and so they did. Hmmmmmm Melanoma. Who knew? Me.
Once your dermatologist calls you with a pathology report, you get to make awesome new medical friends. I had TWO surgeons, one to do the lymph node biopsy in my leg, and one to fix the hole left by the orange sized scoop of flesh they would take out where the mole used to be. First I had to start at Nuclear medicine, where they injected the area around the removed mole with nuclear waste (or dye). those injections are NOT fun, but the technician Brandon was super cute so I pretended I was tougher then I was. THEN they run you through a machine to determine where the nearest Lymph node to the site is, it lights up on the screen, and they take a picture of it.
I got to go upstairs, check in at surgery, sign a bunch of stuff, meet both my surgeons, anesthia-man, and had a nurse blow a vein in the back of my hand. Her supervisor came and did it on the other hand. Does anyone LIKE IV's? no, I don't think they do.
Dr. Suwan is a very cheerful surgeon that everyone likes. His job was to take out the "sentinal node" in my leg, that was the lymph node that "lit up", and also to scoop out the area around my my late unlamented mole. Dr. Mann is a cheeky little guy who is a plastic surgeon- his job was to fix my leg after they scooped it out. Dr. Suwan was pretty sraightforward, Dr. Mann wanted to get into all the details about the repair, and then said we really wouldn't know until it was done.
I am hard to anesthitize, but they figured it out. I woke up really hyper in the recovery room, and immediately started chatting with the poor guy next to me about how therapeutic cats are. My leg was wrapped up really tight (my shin), and my thigh had a big superglue line covering the incision where my node was removed, it's about 3-4 inches long. I had Ox, my ugly doll with me for luck, and they had stuck a bonnet on him and put him back in my arms when i woke up:
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| Ox the Ugly doll after surgery |
The big thing on my leg was a cincher- he sewed the edges of the scoop and pulled it thorugh this cincher thing. On Monday I would have to go back in, and have the wound closed. The plus side was that i didn't have to have a skin graft, YEAH!!!
So Saturday my foster kitty Lucinda died. it was unexpected, and sad, she was only 5, and really sweet. you'd think vicodin would help with that, but it desn't really. she was very special- a Sphynx. they are hairless, like cat gargoyles, but very smart and lovable. I miss her so much.
Monday I got to go back and get the wound sewed up. It looks like a shark bite. he had to take out all the skin and fat down to the muscle. it doesn't really hurt. eryc asked the doctor to take the wrap off before surgery so we could see the open wound and the cincher, it was really gross- no pictures of that (well Eryc took one, but I am NOT showing it to YOU. Here is the shark bite:
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