Skin Cancer

 Being a teenager in the 60s & 70s, I spent a lot of time outside. Swimming at the lake or pool with friends. Canning food in a wash tub over an open fire after picking produce from the garden. Exploring fields and wooded areas for hours on end. Competing with my brothers at shooting skeet or firing arrows at hay bale targets. Playing badminton, basketball, baseball, and hide and seek with either my brothers or cousins. Quite often, I went fishing with Dad; or, hunting with Grandpa Oscar. Most of my non-school hours were outdoors… without sunscreen. 

Over time, the medical community began to warn the public about the dangers of sun exposure. As a young adult, I believed the utter nonsense of, “You have to burn before you can tan. Once you tan, you’re safe from burning again. It’s the repeated sun burns that you have to worry about.” Stupid!!

The first clue that I would eventually be battling skin cancer came when Dad and my brothers began having skin cancer removed. None of them ever used sunscreen either. Plus, they spent even more time in the sun than I did due to their military careers. I think I secretly hoped that their time in the Army was the big difference in the amount of exposure we had. I figured I probably wouldn’t have to deal with it. Unfortunately, I was wrong. My first Mohs surgery took place in my 68th year of life. Sadly, it probably won’t be my last. 

My skin cancer first presented as a dry brown spot in my left eyebrow. I just thought it was an age spot… until it started to bleed, scab over, then bleed again.  It also started getting larger. My PCP put in a referral to a dermatologist, who performed a biopsy. The results were basal cell carcinoma. There was also a pre-cancerous lesion in the same eyebrow. The plan was to remove the skin cancer using Mohs surgery, and to treat the pre-cancerous lesion by freezing it. 

Below are photographs and a brief explanation of the removal pricess.

Diagram of the areas to be treated. Pre-cancerous lesion in the circle, skin cancer in the compass shaped area.

This is area he removed during surgery. It was much larger than I expected! My eyelid is puffy because it is filled with lidocaine. Honestly, the lidocaine injections were horribly painful. But, I never felt a thing during the surgery.

The first 3 days were pretty miserable. The area around my eye was pretty swollen and made it difficult to see clearly. I had to keep the pressure dressing in place for 3 days and start an oral antibiotic to prevent infection. I am a side sleeper and had several sleepless nights because I kept rolling over onto the wound.

This is what the wound looked like the first day without the pressure bandage. The red spot to the left is were the lesion was. 

(Forgot to flip the picture.) Care for the wound consisted of keeping it clean and applying an antibiotic cream 3x each day. That was tricky because the label said, “not for use in the eyes.” Sometimes I would feel it start to drip down into the corner of my eye and it would burn like crazy. 

I was also told I could leave the wound uncovered during the day. However, it needed to be covered if I went out in public and at night. I told my son, Scott, that it was really hard to find a way to bandage it without the gauze sticking to the open area inside the sutures. He told me about a donut dressing the fire fighters used for puncture wounds. Problem solved! It’s a plus to have a firefighter/paramedic in the family.

The sutures had to stay in for 5 weeks. During that time, I finished up the oral antibiotic and continued to apply the antibiotic cream. The wound slowly started to heal and scab over.

This was taken yesterday. It doesn’t look as green as it really was. I had a crusty green area that really looked like mold or moss. I was pretty worried about whether or not the doctor would have to remove  more skin. He didn’t. He said it was just dead skin cells that hadn’t flaked off. He simply cut away the dead skin before the sutures were removed.

As of this morning, I am suture, bandage, and antibiotic cream free!

One thing I forgot to mention was the option to have a skin graft or not. I chose to not have one. The doctor said it would mean caring for 2 wounds and there was no guarantee it would look any better than letting the wound heal naturally. He also said it was common to end up with hairs that are different in color, texture, and could grow in at a different length and direction than the hair in my eyebrow. I hardly have any eyebrows to start with. I sure didn’t want a patch of long hairs sticking out in the wrong direction!  The doctor said I healed well. My eyebrows are symmetrical, I can expect minimal scaring, and in a month it will be hard to tell there was ever a wound there.

Hopefully, this will be my one and only skin cancer removal. But, I will be going back every six months for a full skin check. I thoroughly expect to travel down this road again.