It’s day 4 of my trip to California. It’s remarkable I even made it here with the airports on the east coast being closed from the snow storm last Wednesday night. My noon flight was cancelled, I panicked, called Delta, and I told the agent about my surgery the next morning – she understood and she got me on the next flight. Thank god, because the only other flight of the day to SFO was cancelled as well.
Surgery was Friday in Palo Alto – two days ago. My surgeon seemed younger than I; always makes me feel a bit odd, but she inspired confidence. Told me that she was “anal retentive” and would make sure I “was still beautiful” after the surgery. I immediately liked her attitude – I’m AR, too, in case you haven’t guessed by now.
The first cut was a 5mm circle to the right of my right nostril. To say that I was stunned when she showed me the gaping hole in my face is to put it lightly. I have a good stomach for gore and blood. Working on cadavers never bothered me in the slightest. Yet, I was visibly shaking. She said that it was good for me to see it so I would understand what she had to do next to close me up. She didn’t want me to wake up, look at my sutures, and wonder what the hell happened.
Being that the incision was a circle, she couldn’t just sew me up: my skin would pucker. She had to create a elongated cut, sort of a very long triangle with the base of it wrapping around my right nostril, the point ending in the crease very close to the right corner of my lip. My entire nasolabial line was being cut out and rebuilt. But you can’t just pull these sides together either or my lip would have rose up, my right eye, pulled down.
I was given 5mg of valium to chew and leave in my mouth to calm me. Unfortunately the lame nurse gave me the 2nd set of lidocaine injections BEFORE she gave me the valium. Even the surgeon seemed irritated at her for not “getting” that I needed it BEFORE needles went into my face and made a comment about how I was to get the valium BEFORE the injections. I think she even rolled her eyes. I liked her even more after that.
Lots of skin had to be freed up in order to get the two ends to meet. There were little blue dotted lines on my upper lip and on my cheek where the skin would be freed up. It took somewhere between 20 and 30 stitches to close me up. The nurse said “well over 20″ but who knows.
So here I sit, bandaged up, wondering what the hell just happened to me.
How did a seemingly little, flesh colored mole turn into my entire face being reconstructed over a period of five and a half hours. I honestly thought that I was going to be in and out with maybe 5 to 7 stitches. Something “easy”.
I still can’t believe how totally insane this is that I had cancer growing on my face and that THIS was the best solution known to science to ensure that it was all removed. The incision is scary, ladies. I really worry that I am going to be the person that children stare at and point.
I made an appointment with a facial reconstructive surgeon for tomorrow night before I fly out on Tuesday morning. I want someone who just does “plastic” to look at my sutures and tell me that I didn’t totally fuck myself by letting the same surgeon close me up. She really did inspire confidence in me, and I liked her attitude (I am sure we would be fast & furious friends in real life), but the surgeon who cut this same mole off 3 years ago without having sent it to pathology was also pretty charismatic, but thanks to him, a lot more was cut out than needed to be.
The consult costs $75 – but I just need someone to tell me that I did the right thing here. I know it’s too soon to know if I’ll need more work done on the right side of my face as I’m fresh out of surgery. I am not looking for those sorts of assurances or answers right now. I realize that is unreasonable.
But I reckon he can look at her sutures and say, “Wow, that’s a hack job!” or “Wow, she did great work!”. I hope that he tells me that he couldn’t have done a better job – no one could have. It’s already been told to me that the left side of my face will need altering to make it balanced to the new right side. The right side lost a lot of tissue and reconstructive flaps were used to pull it closed, so the skin on the right side is taut and smooth. The fine lines below my right eye are lessened…even the dark canal under my right eye has smoothed out.
The surgeon suggested that I use fillers to plump up the left side (Sculptra), juvederm in the left eye canal, and possibly blepharoplasty to even out the lower eyes. She said surgery to fix the left was a bad idea. That she would tell the same thing to anyone in her family.
So have 2 months to heal a bit and consider options. I’m back here in March for a check up and to start fillers on the left side. I have to get whole body scans every 6 months to make sure that I’m clean. (1 in 5 folks get another cancer within a year of having their surgery. Egad.)
What sucks is that all this revisioning isn’t going to be covered by insurance. Lower eyelid blephs are about $3000. Maybe $5000 if you do upper at the same time.
I’m grateful that they found the cancer, and that I was able to have it removed fast, but having all this crap come up when I was about ready to cycle really blows.
Please tell me that the lingering shit from 2010 shit is just about over.
