Stitches

I was actually going to give this post another title (more on it below), but given how last week two journalists attacked a blogger because of this particular subject I guess I'll be careful! ;-)  (here I am again, pretending my blog is of any consequence!)

The day after we returned from our Brazil trip I went back to continue my long-delayed pursuit of medical care. After my first family doctor visit in over three years I was scheduled to go to three specialists: a gastroenterologist, a hand surgeon & a dermatologist and I saw the last one that day.

The doctor examined my whole body and decided to remove one suspicious mole and do a biopsy (I was thinking of using this word as the title of the post). She sutured the small cut with two stitches which I was supposed to have removed today, but due to the snow, I'll get them out first thing tomorrow morning.

I hope I didn't have/don't have skin cancer! My dad had several cases on his face and I know that as long as it's carcinoma and not melanoma, it's not that bad because it can be completely removed and not spread. I wonder whether the doctor will have to remove more tissue if the results are positive, though. Does anyone have experience with that?

Growing up I had many bad sunburns, my last bad one when I was 20 already. Now I know better and use sunscreen all the time when we're at the beach. Now I will have to start applying it to my face and arms every day as well, particularly because I drive in the sun every morning and early afternoon.   It will have to become a habit because I want to decrease even more my exposure to the sun's radiation. I'll let you know as soon as I find out what the results of the biopsy were, OK?

P.S. This is a summary of last week's cancer blogger debacle. Obviously my situation has nothing to do with the blogger in question and I'm pretty outraged at the journalists' criticism. I remember years back when the blogosphere mourned the loss of the "Cancer Baby" blogger. Many people were extremely moved by her experience and grieved her death. I think blogging is a very flexible genre and "blogging death" is just fine. If you don't want to read, just ignore it! Even Time magazine picked up this issue in its cover this week ("Blogging Cancer" is written at the top). I am yet to read the article.