The Squamous Monster
Hello! I am new here and excited to be apart of a family that understands. I will make my story short as I could go on and on about it.
I have a very aggressive form of Squamous Cell that basically ate away at my lip and several other parts of my body. The first one I had was when I was 27 and it was a golf ball size in my calf.
I didn't have a reoccurrence until October of 2015. A small pimple like bump appeared on my lip. I picked it, nothing came out, until two days later. It looked like a miniature cauliflower blooming. Having worked in surgery as a surgical technologist and spending most of my time with ENT and plastics I knew what it was.
Treatment & permanent damage
Unfortunately, I had just moved to our new hometown, Huntington Beach. I called several derms to get in ASAP but because it wasn't Melanoma they pushed me back months to get in. I booked the one with the closest date and prayed. I knew how aggressive it can be and hoped for the best. It grew a 1/2 inch within two weeks.
I walked into the office where I had the apt and showed them what I was dealing with. The PA working that day happened to have a father who passed from Melanoma and he did not take my situation lightly. They fit me in that day!!!!
November 9th I had the biopsy and my surgery was on December 7th. Half of my upper right lip was taken along with half of my cheek. 5 frozen sections and almost 6 hours of surgery! I now am left with nerve pain, drooling, speech issues, tooth decay and forever emotional damage.
Legacy of aggressive squamous cell
My mom had the same type of Squamous Cell on her face and it attacked the nerve that goes behind the eye and into the brain. Squamous!! She survived thank goodness but her case is another situation where they didn't take her serious because she didn't have melanoma.
I since then have had to have more times than I can count biopsies and freezes. I am seeing an Oncologist to find a preventative solution and also to make sure it hasn't reached a deeper level of my body than can't be detected by the human eye. I have all of my pictures (some graphic) on my skin cx Social Media pages. Please feel free to follow Burnt.Freckle on Instagram or Facebook.
World, take skin checks seriously!
I am not minimizing Melanoma at all; I think it is time the world, the medical communities and social media take all of skin cancers seriously! So that way skin checks will be just as important as breast exams, annual gyn checks, annual dentist apt's...skin cancer is the leading cancer!
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