OK everybody…got any new lumps, “pimples” that don’t act like normal pimples, skin stuff that’s actively changin, getc, etc?\u00a0\u00a0 This is a heads-up….have them seen by a physician with referral to a dermatologist if deemed “suspicious.”<\/p>\n
Yup, I had a fast-growing lump–fast enough at first to convince me that I had a pimple on my nose.\u00a0\u00a0 It wasn’t.\u00a0 When it didn’t act like a normal pimple (either in appearance or feel) R- insisted I find a dermatologist. I dragged my heels for a week, since the thought of having a “numbing” shot in the nose and then something cut off wasn’t that appealing.\u00a0\u00a0 Nor was the prospect of driving to a medical office (not the nearest, they had no appointments open until January and I figured sooner was better) and dealing with traffic & road construction and so on.\u00a0\u00a0 But I did in the end, and yesterday\u00a0 the derm guy looked at it and said ‘Yeah, almost certainly a cancer; we’ll biopsy it and get it off to the lab to find out which kind….”<\/p>\n
So now I have had the shot in the nose and the lump mostly removed and sent to a pathology lab, and on the way home broke my diet (yesterday’s anyway) with a brownie bite and<\/em> a croissant from a supermarket (the rest of same went to R-, who came with me, or are in the freezer for post-weight-loss occasional treats, though depending on the badness of the bad news expected from the path lab, another brownie bite may be a necessary psych lift.)\u00a0 I was told the local numbing stuff would sting (and I’ve had locals before and they always stung like wasps) but this time…no sting.\u00a0 I knew then *for sure* the tissue wasn’t normal.\u00a0\u00a0 Felt the needle but nothing else but slight pressure.\u00a0 So there we are.\u00a0 Waiting 1-2 weeks for the pathologists to decide which kind of cancer it is, and thus what the “margin” around its remains must be cut out of my nose for safety.\u00a0 And whether any other treatment will be necessary.\u00a0 Can I just say “Ugh!”?<\/p>\n Meanwhile, however, we’ve had another little norther (a dry one this time) , and luckily for me a lawyer’s appointment had to be canceled because they had to attend a funeral (county judge died earlier in the week; the funeral’s today, and lawyers who don’t attend funerals for county judges don’t thrive.\u00a0 They didn’t SAY that, but I knew it from past events.\u00a0 I expect it’s true in other states than Texas, too.\u00a0 I’ve also got an infected toe (a minor injury from several days ago that I didn’t realize had actually made a hole into which germs could go…)\u00a0 so I can’t go out and “walk off” any anxiety about the pathology report.\u00a0 Fortunately (like having a heavy object in each hand) that sore toe is balancing the (not painful today) nose, so I’m not dithering around any more than usual.\u00a0\u00a0 If the lump is either of the two commonest cancers for location, my age, medical history, it’ll be operable, done and gone, and at my age and total lack of prospects for becoming a top model or movie star…what’s a scar to me?\u00a0 The worst sequelae are likely to be too many visits to a dermatologist’s office and hours wasted driving back and forth on busy roads.<\/p>\n If you get a lump on your nose…get it checked.\u00a0 Same for other locations.\u00a0\u00a0 Your daily PSA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OK everybody…got any new lumps, “pimples” that don’t act like normal pimples, skin stuff that’s actively changin, getc, etc?\u00a0\u00a0 This is a heads-up….have them seen by a physician with referral to a dermatologist if deemed “suspicious.” Yup, I had a fast-growing lump–fast enough at first to convince me that I had a pimple on my Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-1003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1004,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions\/1004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}