Well, it’s done.
The dermatologist did the Mohs procedure on Thursday morning. It took 3 passes to get all the cancer out, and I was left with a defect about the size of a dime on the lower left part of my nose. Sort of like this –
Despite what was being done to me, I had a good time at my Moh’s surgeon’s office. We talked kids, and schools and family and money – and then I hung around his little back Mohs waiting room for a few hours till my plastics appointment, returning patient calls and checking labs on my laptop (one of the curses and advantages of an EMR). I left feeling relieved and upbeat.
Until I saw the plastic surgeon.
The Closure
Where my dermatologist is an upbeat, everything is going to be fine kind of guy, Dr Plastics is an empathetic, caring, almost rabbinical kind of guy who really understands how women feel about their faces. So when he entered the room and saw the size of my defect, he looked at me with those dog-eyes of his, looking so sorry for me that I started to cry. He told me the defect was larger than he had expected, and that he would not close it in the office, but under anesthesia at the surgi-center the next morning.
I walked home crushed, sure that I was going to be deformed for the rest of my life. And the fact that I had to spend the night with this hole in my face did not help. What if something happened and I couldn’t get to the surgery tomorrow? Suppose there was a fire, or I got hit by a car, or one of my kids got sick? I’d have to decide between them and closing the hole in my face.
Somehow I got through the night, and next morning went to the surgi-center. What a place – an Upper East Side townhouse that, when you enter, looks for all intents and purposes like a private mansion. Until you head into the back, where the place looks just like any recovery room and OR suite you’ve ever been to. Runs like a well-oiled machine, wonderfully friendly staff and anesthesia, high quality care. A real New York kind of place.
I waited for several hours in a gown on a gurney, listening mostly to my neighbors letting go of gas after colonoscopies while I finished almost all of the Friday NY Times crossword, a feat worth mentioning in any post. My nurse had had two surgeries similar to mine in the past, a fact I did not notice until she pointed out the faint scars. This made me feel hopeful.
Then my surgeon appeared, apologizing profusely for keeping me waiting due to his previous case that had gone longer than expected. I felt oddly reassured by this, figuring that he would take as long as he needed to give me the best cosmetic result he could.
So to sleep I went, the Fentanyl and Versed doing their job quite nicely, and awoke some 30 minutes later, finally done. Dr Plastics had performed a bi-lobed flap and used about 20 tiny stitches to close. So I have an incision running from near my inner eye down the side of my nose that looks like a half of a flower. Sort of like this –
Nice, Huh?
Post-Op
In addition to the incision, I have a black eye and my nose is swollen and red. The pain isn’t too bad during the day, but has kept me up a bit at night, and my stomach is a bit upset from the antibiotics.
Now I just have to wait. Wait for the sutures to come out next week. Wait for the swelling to go down and the scar to fade. It will be sometime before I know how I am going to look, but at least this thing is done.
I find myself embarrassed thinking about having to see patients over the next few weeks with a big bandage on my nose. I wish I had taken off a little more time from work, but everyone said I could go back pretty much right away, so I’m going back on Tuesday. But I feel like it’s all going to be about the nose for sometime. And I am anxious for the point when I can cover the incision with some makeup until the scar starts to fade.
Most people I talk to are remarkably supportive and no one seems particularly worried about how I’m going to look. But somehow their comments haven’t helped. They only make me feel as if I am over-reacting.
And in some respects, I am. I think about Patrick Swayze and know that I am so, so lucky that this is all I have to deal with. And truth be told, I haven’t thought about my nose too, too much today, as we are now on the 7th episode of the first season on The Wire.
But then, I look at myself in the mirror, and get upset all over again. It makes no sense, I know, but this thing has really hit me hard. I think it was the combo of the big hole, the unexpected wait and and then the Frankenstein sutures, and I expect I’ll feel much better about things in a week or so. But right now I’m feeling pretty darned sorry for myself.
After all, it is my Nose.
_________________________________________________
If you want to see photos, go here. I’ll be posting updates periodically as I heal. I warn you, it’s not pretty……