Looking at my calendar today, I became keenly aware this first month of 2016 is almost gone. Our calendar is packed for the final days and I have not Blogged since January 1st. Not off to a great blogging year! So...let's catch up.
When I reviewed my calendar for January, it appears I did nothing the first week of January. Now, that is not true but I only have my calendar with no exciting entries, just the usual weekly reminders of regular activities.
The first thing of note was January 7th. Papa had two places on his face that were a concern. They were both by the nose and were hard lumps. I made an appointment with Dr. Davey, the dermatologist. Dr. Davey check Papa and said those lumps were incidental to aging and of no concern. He was not even interested in removing them. However, he did find two spots that were a concern to him that we didn't even see. Amazing. One was on his left cheek and the other on the top of his head.
Dr. Davey took a biopsy of each spot and sent Papa home with instructions to help them heal. I picked up the ointment to put on them at Kroger. Then I put Band-aids on his kitchen table with the ointment and we read the instruction sheet together and went over what was there and what to do. The spots healed really quickly. He did a great job of taking care of them.
A week later Dr. Davey's office called to tell me the biopsy was cancerous and they were squamous cell cancers. That is the middle level. Dr. Davey wants them removed. Not life threatening but they will only get worse.
We will go tomorrow afternoon and have one of them removed. Then Papa will have a month for it to heal before they remove the other one. We are told it could take several hours depending on how deep they must cut. The surgery will be done in the dermatologist's office. It is called Moh's. It is a 'microscopic' surgery. They will deaden Papa's face in the area where they will work, remove a thin layer of the area, take it right into their lab and determine if there are any cancerous margins. If there are, they will go back and take more and send that to the lab for testing. The process will repeat until they get clear margins. It take about 45 minutes to process each of the layers.
This should be an interesting thing to go through with Papa. I believe his trip to the hospital for his heart attack made him not want to go back for anything else. Can't blame him for that now, can we? I know he will set his jaw and go though this with the same determination he always does. He called yesterday and said, "What is this about me having to have surgery? Where did that come from?" Poor guy can't keep it all straight but he knows he doesn't like what is happening. Hope it goes well and as quickly as possible.
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