Here We Go, Yet Again

You’d think it would get easier.

I had just walked in the door after work. I hadn’t slept well the night before, and it had already been a long week even though it was only Tuesday. I decided a quick nap would do me some good and give me the energy I needed to accomplish everything on my to-do list for the night. No sooner had I lain down and snuggled under a blanket on the couch, when my phone rang.

Unexpected biopsy results

It was my doctor. Cheerily, she asked how I was. (I don’t know, doc – you tell me, I wanted to say, but I didn’t.) Then she dropped it on me. The biopsy I had yesterday morning came back as squamous cell carcinoma, and I needed to come in for an excision. “But the last biopsy came back clear, and it looked just like this place,” I protested. Not that she was going to change her mind. Not that the biopsy results would magically change.

She told me we needed to get it taken care of soon and scheduled an appointment for in-office surgery on December 14. Ten days before Christmas Eve. What’s with my skin cancer and holidays lately?  I just had two biopsies right before the long July 4 holiday weekend, which resulted in one excision for basal cell carcinoma.

Another excision procedure

My doctor told me the procedure would be just like last time, which means I’ll be getting numbing shots (last time it was six shots), she’ll then cut out the area plus remove extra skin around it to make sure she gets all of the cancer, then I’ll get an internal layer of stitches and an external layer of stitches and a nice big bandage to top it off. And if it’s like last time, I’ll then have pain, once the numbing shots wear off. This time, though, I’m having the procedure first thing in the morning and will go into work after, instead of having it done at the end of the day and heading home. This will be loads of fun, I thought, as I put the date on my calendar.

Skin cancer recurrence never gets easier

I should be used to phone calls like these by now, but I’m not. It still rattles me each time I learn I have another cancerous area. Right now, I’m frustrated, I’m sad, I’m anxious about yet another procedure, and I’m angry at how stupid I was with my sun habits in my younger years. Twenty plus years of skin cancer, and this never gets any easier.