The Hits Just Keep Coming

Cancer Diary

The Hits Just Keep Coming

On the day I experienced the first symptoms of what became my Glioblastoma diagnosis, I had a routine annual appointment with my dermatologist. I was experiencing what I now know were ocular seizures, but I tried not to worry about the disco ball light show because I was listening to my dermatologist tell me I had some pre-cancerous spots and one that he especially didn’t like the look of. 

I had two pre-cancerous spots frozen off of my face. My grandmother always referred to her annual dermatologist appointment as “having her barnacles scraped.” I was getting scraped too. The spot my doctor didn’t like was on my left cheek. My face cheek, not my butt cheek - which I ended up explaining to other doctors many times over the next month. The scraping was a biopsy of the suspicious spot. 

This was a week before I was attending my god-daughter’s wedding. My sister was going as my “plus one,” and coincidentally she had a dermatologist appointment that week too. We joked that if she had to have anything frozen off we would show up at the wedding looking like 2 of the 3 Sanderson sisters. (The witches from Hocus Pocus.) Fortunately, she escaped the liquid nitrogen at her appointment and I was able to cover my wounds with makeup and/or bandaids. 

Two days before I left for the wedding I got a call from the dermatologist’s office telling me that the biopsy results were in and that I had squamous cell carcinoma. It was explained to me that there are 3 types of skin cancer - Basal Cell, Squamous Cell, and Melanoma. I didn’t have the worst one, but I didn’t have the best one. They could get me in that weekend for a Mohs Procedure. (Mohs surgery is a precise surgical procedure primarily for skin cancer, where the surgeon removes thin layers of cancerous tissue, analyzes them under a microscope in real-time, and removes more tissue only from the areas where cancer cells remain.) I couldn’t schedule the weekend appointment because I would be in Georgia for a wedding, so I was scheduled for late October. I liked this timing as the procedure would fall after my 50-year high school reunion. I did not want to attend my reunion with a large wound on my cheek. (My face cheek!) 

Quite a lot happened as soon as I got home from the wedding. I had the testing my PCP ordered that led to my Glioblastoma diagnosis and I had brain surgery to remove the tumor. Dealing with the Mohs Procedure was not high on my priority list. When I got a call from the dermatologist letting me know they could get me in earlier, I went ahead and took the appointment, knowing I wasn’t attending my high school reunion due to the brain surgery anyway. 

I second guessed why I was even having the skin cancer removed. I had just been told I had an incurable brain cancer - why was I going to go through the motions of dealing with the skin cancer? I convinced myself that a “normal person” would want their skin cancer removed. I was going to try to be normal. 

I had the Mohs Procedure on 10/11, less than two weeks after brain surgery. Of the two surgeries, the Mohs was by far the more painful. Seriously. I ended up with about a 4-inch incision on my cheek (my face cheek). With the stitches I looked like I had a starring role in The Bride of Frankenstein. 

Lucky for me, the wound healed nicely and the scar is not bad at all. Believe it or not, I do not even care. What once would have been a big deal to me, (“Vanity, thy name is woman”) is no big thing to me now. I’m noticing there are a lot of things that have taken on less importance. Funny how a life threatening illness can change your priorities!