It’s over, the BC Carcinoma is gone. It’s over.Ding dong, the witch is dead…"
I had the Mohs surgery this morning, and I was left with a hole at the tip of my nose which was 1.3 cm in diameter. They just managed to close it up without grafts or flaps, so I have a straight scar down the bridge of my nose. Oooohhhh it’s tight, and it’s throbbing, and I think I may have got a complimentary face lift along with the deal.
It throbs, but I’m sure it will heal and be fine. I’m relieved. Was it pleasant? No. Am I pleased about having a large scar on my nose? Nope. But it’s better than the alternative.
Thanks to everyone who offered reassurance and moral support!
I’m so happy that’s it’s over… I felt your pain this morning… Scar will heal… But it will be sore for a few weeks… Very tender there… I thought I got a nose job too… that’s so funny you said that. I still think my nose is a little cuter than before. Hugs…
Thanks, everyone. Yes, a 1.3 cm hunk of skin leaves quite a gap on your nose. I was amazed that they managed to close it with a straight stitch line: I really thought it would be some kind of a fancy flap thing. But no …
Yes, it’s a relief and I am really looking forward to my holiday!
Take care, and wear sunscreen.
It was a totally impressive clinic. Whether they would be able to do a straight closure was not guaranteed: the doc did a test stitch to see whether the skin was going to stretch far enough for the edges of the 1.3 cm hole to meet. He pulled so hard, I thought I was getting a complimentary facelift.
They are, indeed, minute. In fact, that’s a running stitch: continuous piece of suture. What you can’t see is the four large dissolving stitches in a deeper layer which take the strain off the outer stitches.
They did not say anything about whether my cross eyes would straighten out again.
I’m impressed too. The whole area is swollen (but not hot) today, and I hope that settles tomorrow. Still oozing a bit of blood. Ick. But I’m pretty confident that it will go OK. Wanna see a before? I’ll go dig up the pic.
I think it’s beautiful work, too! And, yes, Seenie, put up a before pic–I’m thinking they took out a lot of tissue surrounding the cancer so you’ll never have to deal with this again!!!
GrandmaJ, I had Mohs surgery. It’s really interesting. First the surgeon marks the visible lesion with reference points and cuts it out. Then they do a biopsy right there while you wait about an hour. When they know where the remaining cancer cells are, you go back, they freeze some more and they cut more out from that spot. You wait again for an hour while they do a biopsy to identify where there are cancer cells left, until all traces of the cancer are gone. Then they do the repair. How they do it depends on how much tissue they had to take. I was lucky they didn’t have to graft or take tissue from anywhere else to make a patch.
I got off very easily, and I feel very fortunate that the thing was discovered, and that I could choose to have this done in a top-notch clinic. I’m a very lucky human indeed.
And I’m lucky to have great supportive friends at home and here on our PsA community.
Hey… Its called kelo-cote… It’s the best!! My four scars are pretty much unnoticeable… I got it on amazon… You have to wait a little before using it, but not long…
