I go to the dermatologist every six months, and he freezes spots on my hands and face. My left hand has been cut on twice, and my right hand has been cut on once.
My first really big cancer was on my right cheek. In October of 2007 this is what I looked like. If you look closely on my right cheek, you can see a lesion. It is a spot that never really healed. I had it curetted several years earlier, and it came back as squamous cell carcinoma.
Below is me at Thanksgiving of 2007. You can see where I had had several spots frozen and a bandaid on my right cheek where I had a shave biopsy. It came back cancer again. So my dermatologist sent me to a Mohs surgeon.
The next picture was just before the surgeon did his first cut on December 20, 2007. The biopsy had healed over in about a month.
The dotted line marks the first excision. The surgeon took the skin and viewed it under the microscope and determined that he needed to excise more in the lower left quatrant. After examining this, he determined that he got it all.
He did a great job stitching me up. It was really tight, but he said it would loosen up over time, and it did. It has been ok ever since.
One of my grandsons, Eli, has leukemia, and I said that when he lost his hair due to his chemo, I would shave my head.
So, it was in March of 2010 that I had shaved my head and during my next dermatology appointment the doc said there is a spot on your head that looks angry. It was right on the top of my head where I could not see it. He took a biopsy and sent it off. It came back as a melanoma. Melanoma is the most dangerous type of skin cancer. It is the leading cause of death from skin disease. So, he referred me to a surgeon. I figured it would be kind of like my Mohs surgery: that is, done in the office and local. However, this doc made me go to the hospital and be put under and miss a couple of days from school. I could not get scheduled until September. Anyhow, the first picture is just a day after the surgery. The scar is almost three inches long. I figured he cut out a piece of skin about the size of a quarter. It was pretty tight, too.
This picture is about a week after the surgery.
Thanks to shaving my head for Eli, I found this one. Eli has a full head of hair now, and so do I.
Update: November 17, 2020
I had a consultation yesterday for two spots that I had biopsied a couple of weeks ago. One is on my left eyebrow and the second is on the back of neck (left). I will go tomorrow to have the eyebrow treated by Mohs surgery. The doctor will remove the spot with margins and some depth. He will then view the section under the microscope and note where he may have to go back and remove more. He will repeat this process until the margins are clean. Then he will stitch me up. So, the plan is to have the eyebrow done tomorrow and return in a week to have the stitches removed and at that time do the neck.
Tomorrow, I will be having Mohs surgery on my left eyebrow.
Then, a week later, I will have surgery done on my left neck (back).
