a little surgery

While Nige was in Europe I scheduled an appointment to have a mole map of my body done.  Since I'd had a couple non-malignant moles removed when I was younger, and because my nana had a malignant melanoma mole, and because I'd also noticed a 'mole' increasing in size in recent years, I thought it would be a wise thing to do.  I had to wear these three patches for a few days afterwards - lovely!

The doctor found two suspicious looking marks on my face and so scheduled me in to have them removed two weeks later.  The 'mole' I'd noticed growing, actually turned out to be a freckle but the doctor said these too can sometimes become bad.  The freckle and the mole by my right ear were both given the all-clear.  The doctor also burned off a soft wart on my right cheek, at my request the day of the surgery, and that now no longer gets in the way of where my sunglasses rest on my cheek.

I had 9 stitches in the freckle on my left cheek (plus 5 internal stitches), three stitches on my right cheek (plus two internal stitches), and a burn scab where the wart was.  The local anesthetic stung like CRAZY, especially on my right cheek up near my eye - he gave me several jabs of it for each cut.  It hurt so bad it made me cry.

This photo was taken a week after the stitches were removed - the doctor did a fine job with stitching me back together - very neat work.  I'm thankful that what was removed was all clear of any melanoma.