It’s been a very long time, over 10 years, since I’ve had a Primary Care Physician, but this morning I met with one to have a baseline physical so he could approve me for the pending melanoma excision surgery. There wasn’t much to the visit, not as much as I was expecting at least, but he seems like a nice kid and I liked him. And yes, I said “kid” because I’m approaching 40 years old and though he was probably not much younger than me, boy did he look young! I guess I’m already turning into an old man. 🙂

We met with the plastic surgeon who, due to the size of the resulting wound from my pending excision surgery, will be taking a layer of skin from my thigh and grafting it to the melanoma excision wound to try and help speed up recovery time.

I would like to point out that this doctor impressed me because when he was discussing recovery care with us he asked us about insurance, which we do not have. When he found out we don’t have any medical insurance, he was genuinely concerned that we could be put into serious financial hardship by the bills for the services he would be providing. He made sure we knew we could discuss financial aid with his office. If you ever read this blog post, thank you sir!

Today we met with the surgeon who will be performing the excision of the melanoma. He informed us he would be performing a wide excision because their policy is to remove a margin of the skin 2 cm past the visible melanoma to make sure no cancer cells have been left in nearby skin. In my situation this will result in the removal of about an 6 cm circle of skin all the way down to the fascia. The surgeon informed us that due to the size of the resulting wound, he wants to get a plastic surgeon involved to cover the wound with a graft to help speed up my recovery.