recoup'ing

Last week was the start of the process of better health for me. You see, when I was younger I had a number of bad sunburns in the summer. My parents did a good job of keeping me well blocked when I was a kid (except when our luggage got lost), but I haven't always been the best at the same task as a teenager and now as an adult. All this to say that I've had some suspicious moles pop up or change over the past number of years. So with seven moles removed in five years (two of them pre-cancerous), I should be the poster child for annual skin check-ups. Sadly, it had been about two years since I last went in for an appointment and I was overdue.

So last week I made an appointment for a full body check (yeah, always a joy...) and the doctor found two moles that she decided to biopsy. One was so small I didn't even know I had it (way to go doc!) and the other was one that had actually be biopsied before but the pigment grew back (sad). This brings us up to yesterday and my appointment to have them removed.

Thankfully I was cool as a cucumber before the appointment -- I have a tendency to get anxious with these things. But when I got into the operating room they had mixed my charts up with someone else! To their credit, it was with another patient named Heather (different last name) getting a very similar prodecure done. So everything is going fine: they give me a few shots of numbing stuff, remove the super small mole, get started on the second, larger one. Then I begin to feel a little light-headed. And hot. And clammy. And I had to say something. They were great -- flipped me over, gave me a cold washcloth and bottle of water, and let me rest. A few minutes later I'm feeling much better and ready to finish this thing. Not sure what happened (I probably wasn't breathing), but I'm feeling better.

Now it's all about keeping the areas clean, being careful with the stitches and taking a break from the gym for a few days. Next week the story continues...stiches removed Wednesday - yay!