Five days post-op

My Frankenstein look

Well, I'm through the hardest part of the Mohs surgery. If you want to see some gross and scary pictures, they are available from my Sunday post on https://eyeontheedge.blogspot.com/2025/08/cancer-is-gone.html. Now, just five days away from those moments, I am beginning to look almost normal. And even though the surgeon did take a hunk of tissue, I am now cancer-free. 

So now I can turn my attention to other aging parts of my body, right? I walked three miles this morning, and by the time I turned onto my street, my right sacrum had seized up and made it hard for me to continue. But once I rested a bit and put on my Big Girl pants, I kept going and finally walked up the steps, happy to be home. SG was at the dentist's office all morning, beginning his adventure of getting a couple of crowns and a bridge. He says the most troubling part of the whole thing is the expense. Too bad we don't live close to the Mexican border; I know some people who have gotten this kind of dental work done for a fraction of the cost he will pay. But it's something he's committed to doing, because he will be better prepared to face whatever the future holds.

My guy looks ahead and tries to ride the waves, and I am so happy to have such a partner. He takes great care of me, and he also looks for ways to avoid the shoals and sandbars that we will need to navigate through the coming storms, virtual and actual. The really good part of all this turmoil is that we are living in the best place in the US, if you ask me. 

Pretty flowers all in a row

I hope you are having a good summer, and that it's not terribly hot for you. I feel almost guilty that we won't even make it past 70 degrees F here today. It's been a great summer season so far.

:-)

Four little words

Snagged from Linda's blog

Ah, summer fruits! There is nothing that looks more delightful to my eyes than fresh fruit and veggies from a Farmers' Market. My friend Linda, who lives in Seattle, has a lovely collection of photos she took during a recent visit to a local Farmers' Market. I enjoyed the pictures so much that I asked for permission to use this one. Fortunately for you, the pictures cannot be eaten, which would destroy the beauty, don't you think? I love the bounty we have in the Pacific Northwest during the summer.

And so far, this year, we have only had a small assortment of really hot days. We are experiencing one today, Tuesday the 12th, but tomorrow promises to bring us cool and rainy weather. It will be the last day before my cancer surgery on Thursday.

There is not much else on my mind. By mid-morning on Thursday, I should have a better idea of how much this squamous cell carcinoma has invaded my neck. It could be just a little, or it could be a lot. The way Mohs surgery works is that a slice (a "shave") of tissue is removed and sent to the lab. This will continue until there are no more signs left of the cancer, and then you're sewed up, bandaged, and sent home to recuperate.

The four little words in my title? Well, they are "how deep" and "how wide" did it all end up being? At this point, nobody knows and the doctor will use her expertise to take up as little as possible, but still trying to make sure to get it all. It is not an exact science, but it is considered to be the gold standard in treating and removing skin cancers. I am told that the procedure will take all day and to be ready for it to be long and tedious. Each tissue sample must be evaluated before moving on to the next. And there are other people going through it as well, at the same time.

The month of August always seems to have been been a significant time in my life. I was pregnant during my first August as a married woman. My first son, Chris, was born in November, but he died on August 15th, many years later. My second son, Stephen, was born on the same day. There was a time when I had two sons, both living, during their August birthdays. Now they are both gone, and have been for a long time. But a mother never forgets those birthdays, no matter how long it has been.

Now that I have lived a full life, become an octogenarian, and have finally gone through the experience of having developed cancer, I have joined the myriad others who have gone before me. It might be just a blip, gone forever, or it might be the beginning of another journey. We are all traveling the timeline of destiny, whether we want to or not.

Sorry, I didn't mean to get so maudlin. I didn't sleep well last night because it was so hot, but I suspect that tonight I'll sleep like a baby. Next week will be here before we know it!

:-)

Got the referral today!

Typical Mohs surgery setup

A date! Although the dermatology clinic (Frontier) only received my referral yesterday, already today I have received detailed instructions on how my own Mohs adventure will proceed. The date is in nine days, August 14, and now all of my anxiety, relief, worry, and concerns have been allayed. Along with the help of a nice person who gave me all the information and sent me a link to the entire procedure, I learned that It will take all day, since there will be many of us decked out in gowns on our own separate guerneys. The way Mohs surgery works is they shave off a bit of tissue and send it to the lab. While that is going on, the surgeon has moved to the next person and repeated it again. This goes on from three to eight hours, with each patient hoping for their cancer to be sliced, diced, finished and gone. 

And I will hopefully be one of them, however long it takes. They do this Mohs surgery on both basal cell and squamous cell cancers. If you are unlucky enough to have melanoma, they do something called "slow Mohs" surgery. It takes longer to process the tissue, I guess.

I also learned that it is all done on an outpatient basis, using a local anesthetic to numb the area. I have a virtual friend who will be having Mohs surgery around her eye area. I wonder what causes the different places for a carcinoma to form. Is it genetics? I didn't think I would be featuring this myself, but why did I think that, since skin cancer is ubiquitous in the elderly. Nobody in my family, except my uncle Joe, ever died of it; we seem to be more likely to die of a heart attack or a brain aneurysm. As I age, I do wonder what body part will wear out first. My eyes and ears are not holding up well, but one can live without those two senses. Maybe not a great existence, but still.

It's kind of comforting to realize I will be part of a community as we await another slice to be shaved off our carcinomas and examined. I am looking forward to it! 

:-)