One Of Those Weeks
It’s been one of those weeks. We are at Mom’s. She has several skin cancers that need to be removed over the next several weeks. She had the first and worst one done yesterday. She saw a Mohs micrographic surgeon, who removed a piece of skin roughly one inch by two inches from the middle of her forehead. Yikes! He barely got the wound closed. Needless to say, she’s in incredible pain. Unfortunately, her skin heals very slowly. They want her to return to remove the stitches next week, but I can’t imagine it will be healed by then.
The Mohs surgery is pretty amazing. They remove the cancer and then examine it under a special microscope to make sure they got it all. Some of the margins were not clear, so after an hour of waiting (sitting there with this huge open wound) the doctor came back in and removed more. This time (and hour later) the margins were clear and he was able to stitch her up. Amazing technology. Exhausting day.
Today I took her to her primary doc for an unhealed wound on her leg – from her last fall. Her leg has been swelling and yesterday it was quite inflamed. He thinks it’s doing OK even though it’s been weeks. She has another cut on her arm – also not healing well. And she has three more skin cancers to remove. This is going to be a long summer for all of us.
I feel bad that I need to leave tomorrow, but I have class on Saturday and a party on Monday for friends from the east coast that we haven't’ seen in at least 15 years. My brother is coming to help Mom out for the weekend. Every time I experience this, I wonder what my only-child son and DIL will do. Smooshed anyone?
Labels: Mohs, sandwich generation, skin cancer, surgery
