Michelle and the kids left to visit family out of state for a couple of days, so I’ll be home alone until Sunday.
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Back to the plastic surgery office again today, and another good report.
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Today was the second post operation visit to the plastic surgeon’s office. I got another good report and they want to see me back in a week. We’ve now been scheduled for weekly visits.
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Today was the first post operation visit to the plastic surgeon’s office. I got a good report and they want to see me back in a week.
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Since I knew I’d be mostly immobile, I had intended to work from home this week, but unfortunately that didn’t work out as planned. This morning I couldn’t find a way to sit comfortably at the computer for more than a few minutes while elevating my leg. So, even though I didn’t really want to be out, I called in and asked for the week off so I could recover enough to hopefully return to work next week.
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Friday, July 7th was my surgery. I came out of the anesthesia just fine, in spite of my misgivings regarding being put under. I am not really supposed to move around much as I have been instructed to keep my leg elevated as much as possible. Thankfully, even though I was told that my leg would start hurting a lot after the medicine wore off in the hospital, it actually hasn’t hurt me at all. It has been a little uncomfortable, but not painful.
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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. 🙂
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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!
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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.
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My family and I just spent the last week in South Carolina near Myrtle Beach with our church. The kids had a great time and Michelle and I enjoyed helping out and are grateful to have been provided the opportunity to be a part of the trip this year.
Unfortunately, during the trip the lab results came back that the mole on my shin was a Melanoma. So, we’ve been scheduled to meet with a surgeon to have the mole completely removed.