A couple of weeks ago, I had an appointment with my medical caregiver to remove a dime-sized growth on my right shoulder. I went home with a little round bandage on the excised area.
The lab at the clinic performed a biopsy on the removed tissue and it turned out to be a basal cell carcinoma – skin cancer in other words. I got a call last week that they wanted to schedule a second procedure that would remove additional tissue that would “get it all.”
On Monday, I went in to have the second procedure performed. After it was all finished, I had a two-inch gash on the shoulder held together with a bunch of sutures.
This is actually the second time I have gone through this; the first basal cell removal and follow-up occurred before I retired in 2009 and left a nasty, jagged scar in the middle of my back.
This time, this surgeon did a much better job of stitching me up; if you’re inclined to view my new nice, straight incision, you can click in the rectangle above and to the right.
At the California house, the weather in June typically is mild temperatures with night and morning low clouds and fog. Late spring and summer in our town in Arizona is a completely different story. We have sunny days, warmer temperatures and a weather phenomenon known locally as “dust devils.”