(Note: I’m kind of cheating with today’s entry: this is a rewrite of something I wrote elsewhere. Hey, recycling is fashionable nowadays.)
Before I begin, a disclaimer: Nothing really bad has happened to me, or ever was likely to. Please read this last sentence again.
Now, let me tell you my skin cancer story.
Early this year, I developed a reddish spot on my upper right arm, just below the shoulder. At first, I thought it was a skin fungus: I was doing a lot of swimming to stay in shape, and I’d had a couple of these before. Finally, in June – ironically, after reading a story about somebody who had a nasty type of skin cancer – I went and had it checked out at the medical clinic near where I live. The diagnosis: ringworm, which is a kind of skin fungus (with a really yucky name).
The doctor gave me a small tub of cream, which I was to rub into the spot twice a day. It apparently was going to take several weeks for it to go away, as these beasties can be stubborn. I diligently applied the cream as prescribed, and enjoyed my summer.
In August, I noticed that the damned thing hadn’t changed one bit, despite repeated applications of cream. I wondered what was happening. I didn’t think it was skin cancer: it didn’t look like the pictures of skin cancer that I saw on the net, and it was on a spot on my arm that doesn’t normally see much sun. (I love being outdoors in the summer, but I don’t go around shirtless. I am old enough that I look better clothed than unclothed.) I wasn’t sure whether to do anything about it, but I developed an ear infection, and a repetitive strain injury in my elbow that just wouldn’t go away, so I had to go to the clinic again anyway.
At the clinic, I got pills for the ear infection, and physio appointments for the elbow, and figured, let’s have the doctor look at the arm while I’m here. He took a look at it, went “hmmm”, and gave me a referral to a dermatologist who was booked up one month in advance. Okay, I thought. Something’s up.
In September, I went to see the dermatologist, and got a diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma, which is the least harmful and most common form of skin cancer. It can take years to appear – apparently, this probably resulted from a sunburn I got when I was growing up. The doctor told me not to worry – this type of cancer virtually never spreads anywhere in the body. I was in no danger. I found out later, from my father, that the success rate is something like 99.999999% – I’m far more likely to be hit by a bus than be killed by this kind of cancer. In fact, some people don’t even call this cancer any more. But, still, it was kind of weird.
In the September appointment, I had a biopsy done, and another appointment was set up for October, in which the diagnosis was confirmed. A date in November was booked to have the darned thing removed. The only really unpleasant parts of the surgery were (a) waiting in the lobby and not knowing whether I was going to have to endure any pain, and (b) the local anaesthetic, which felt like a bunch of bee stings and was much less painful than the pulled leg muscle I sustained this spring. Once the local had kicked in, I felt no pain at all, modern science be praised. I exchanged small talk with the nurse while I studiously avoided looking down and to my right. I figured I didn’t need to know what was happening.
The nurse and I talked about representational versus non-representational art, of all things. I told her that non-representational art is to painting as jazz is to music: taking things such as colour, shape and line as far as they can be taken. (This is probably a lousy explanation – if you are an artist, please do not shoot me.) This achieved her assumed goal of keeping my mind off of what was happening – but, actually, since I wasn’t in pain, I was blithely unconcerned. It was much less unpleasant than having a tooth shaved down. (Long story – I have bridgework instead of front teeth, thanks to being hit by a softball when I was 12.)
When the procedure was over, the doctor slapped a rather large bandage on my upper arm, and gave me a written list of instructions as to what to do next. (“Don’t shower for 24 hours; shower with bandage on, then replace bandage; swimming is right out.”) I had to go to four drug stores before I found one that had bandages large enough to serve as replacements. They put in about six large stitches in my upper arm, which seems to be a fairly large wound, given that the original patch was significantly smaller than a dime. I guess they wanted to make sure they got it all.
When they took the stitches out, they told me that the lab report indicated that they had, indeed, gotten it all. Yay! I was left with a scar on my right arm that’s about an inch and a quarter long. Naturally, I wanted to be able to come up with a cool and totally fabricated explanation of how the scar got there.
When I went to Christmas Eve dinner with friends, they suggested that I could claim that the scar was from having a Special Forces tattoo removed. Of course, the only way I could have joined Special Forces of any kind was if they have an Elite Documentation Squad, ready and willing to use FrameMaker behind enemy lines.
Here is a page on basal cell carcinomas, if you’re curious. Mine doesn’t seem to match any of the descriptions here. I think it’s closest to the Superficial one, since it was mistakenly diagnosed at first.
The moral of this story: if you’ve got any weird blotches on your skin, get them checked out. I was lucky – all I have is a place where an Elite Documentation Squad tattoo used to be. But I could have been less lucky than I was.
Posted by davetill 