The excision… it sounds like a title of a horror movie, doesn’t it?

So, if you’re reading this, you’re probably wondering about the surgery to remove my pink melanoma. It’s actually not really surgery at all. In fact, if you want to get all technical, it’s an excision. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. When my dermatologist called me with the news, I admit that I wasn’t thinking as coherently as I wanted to. Mostly, I heard the blood rushing in my ears or the little voice saying, “ah, you’ll get it cut out and you’ll be fine”. It alternated between the two. Occasionally, I actually heard what the doctor was saying.

So, the excision is an outpatient procedure, done under local anesthetic. (I didn’t ask for Valium but maybe you can…although I really would have preferred a vodka instead to calm my nerves.) I laid down on a regular exam table, was tilted up so my knee was at a good height for the doctor doing the removal, got drawn on with a Sharpie, and was given a ton of injections to numb the site. I hung out for awhile, waiting for the numbing medication to kick in and wondering if I should get up to get my phone to take a photo of the evil eye that had been drawn on my leg. I even joked with the medical assistant that I was going to get a tat of the drawing. (Ha, hell would probably freeze over before I get a tattoo. We haven’t discussed my fear of needles yet but even watching Tattoo Nightmares gives me nightmares of my own.)

My husband, the wussy, left the room before they started cutting. He claims he didn’t know that it was going to be over so quickly but I think we all know the real reason…In general, I stared up at the ceiling and made inappropriate jokes while it was going on. The doctor and I bonded over our shared love of the E show Botched. (My “surgeon” is also a plastic surgeon in the dermatology practice and I find it hilarious how much plastic surgeons love that show.) About 20 minutes later, just as I thought she was wrapping up, I felt a searing pain. Turns out the numbing medication didn’t reach far enough into the leg tissue and I could feel the doctor stitching me up in the wound. But, I mentioned my discomfort (as in, “Ouch, am I supposed to feel this?”) and they shot me up again. In a minute or so, I was back to just feeling pressure and tugging. That’s really all you’re supposed to feel – pressure, tugging.

In less than a half hour, I was being bandaged up by the medical assistant. They made my husband go back into the room to hear the wound care instructions, but he was too busy taking a photo of my new set of stitches to pay too much attention.

I had a pressure bandage put on and was told I needed to wait 48 hours before taking it off and I couldn’t get it wet. Meaning, I couldn’t take a shower for 48 hours. That really is the hardest part, sitting around feeling grubby. And wanting to see if it’s really as big of a cut as it looked…Part of me really wanted to see how bad it was going to be and the other part really didn’t.

To care for the wound, after you take the first shower, keep the wound moist and protect it. So, every day, I’ve been slathering on Aquaphor with a Q-tip and making little ouchy noises while doing that before my husband places a gauze bandage over the area and wraps a stretchy Ace bandage type thing over the whole thing. So far, it’s been healing fairly well. The top part of my set of stitches bleeds a little if I’ve got my knee bent and not elevated for too long. The bottom part is healing really well. Supposedly, as long as I keep the area moist, it will reduce the scar. If it scabs, it scars – at least that’s what the dermatologist told me.

I’m looking forward to getting my stitches out. Hopefully, it will heal well. The scar is going to be pretty big for saying my pink spot was the diameter of a pencil eraser. I’m looking at a 4-inch scar on my inner knee. But I know that’s better than living with something I know is cancer. I just hope the pathology report comes back with good news. The pathology report will tell me whether all of it was taken out with the excision or if I need to get lymph nodes looked at. Seeing as the closest lymph nodes are in my groin, I would really prefer that they don’t need to muck around with that area unless they are going to do a tummy tuck at the same time…