It's been an interesting full moon

[jdad]

I can't make this stuff up.

I was scheduled Friday morning for a PDT. Any of you that have had skin cancers or a lot of pre cancerous stuff, on your face, know what it entails. https://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatm ... erapy.html

I've had to stay out of all natural light for at least the last 48 hours or the skin on my face/head will continue to fry. It's worth it since I've already had two squamous cells on my face removed, one Mohs and one radiated (8-3 minute treatments). I'm going to look like a cross between a leper and a shedding lizard for the next couple of weeks.

So Thursday morning my wife is complaining about some discomfort in her lower abdomen. Of course it had to be something she ate. Friday morning when I return home from my procedure she's driving herself to the ER. She texts me an hour or so later and says she's being prepped for a perforated bowel. Oh joy.

"Don't worry I will be fine. Wait for the sun to go down." I'm at the hospital by sunset and she's just being moved to post surgical recovery. The surgeon says the surgery went fine, the hole was patched with some fatty tissue, peritonitis was dealt with, and she's going to need the bad section of her sigmoid colon removed in 6 weeks.

I guess my wife's plan to retire in March just got moved out a bit.

[piller]

Rough times. Prayers for healing sent.

[Grizz]

yeah, prayers UP for both of you. blessings in every way...

[Blaine]

What a messed up year.

[gamekeeper]

Prayers for a full and speedy recovery for both of you..

[stretch]

Wow!

Wishing you both the very best.

And for everybody - may 2021 be a VAST improvement over 2020!

-Stretch

[jdad]

Thank you all. I'm doing fine, but my better & prettier half has had a rough morning.

She had a reaction this morning to one of the IV antibiotics, migraine, and vomiting. She gets another night in hospital.

[piller]

That antibiotic also turns your urine brown. Very effective, but migraine and nausea happens a lot with it.

[AJMD429]

Glad things worked out OK. One thing to keep in mind for skin cancers is that the most deadly one is melanoma, and in my opinion melanoma should be considered as having nothing to do with the sun. The reason I say that is because I’ve seen patients ignore dark lesions in areas where they didn’t get sun thinking that they couldn’t be skin cancer.

They also don’t tend to occur after years of sun exposure like the basal and squamous cell cancers do.

The very first melanoma I ever saw in one of my own patients was on a 26-year-old woman, and the area it was in is called the posterior fourchette (if you wanna look up where that body part is don’t have your kids around when you type it into the search engine... ).

Suffice to say it is not an area where one would get much sun exposure. Unfortunately, the patient had seen a gynecologist, and gynecologists tend not to know much about anything other than ovaries and uteruses, so the lesion was ignored. It was only about 2 mm in diameter and just looked like a tiny black dot hidden in the folds there, but I saw it, and took it off the same day. It was a malignant melanoma that was 0.9 millimeter deep. Once they get past a millimeter deep they are often invading locally, and the patient then has to go to a plastic surgeon who will then take everything in all directions within three or 4 inches... Fortunately, she did not have to have that done. I have another patient who is now in her 60s who had a melanoma in that general area missed when she was in her 20s (she had also asked a gynecologist about it who told her not to worry, but later on she even went to see a dermatologist for a “skin cancer screening” and the dermatologist didn’t even have her remove her bra or underwear ) and by the time she showed it to her family physician it was invasive so they had to take urethra, clitoris, and vagina, the latter which meant taking also cervix and uterus. She can poop normally but has to pee in a bag.

The bottom line is check your skin once a month head to toe, and you really need to have someone else check the areas you can’t see well because using two mirrors to check your back you really can’t see much (especially as you get old and can’t see as well...). Fortunately, the scalp is a fairly rare place for melanoma, because it’s nearly impossible to check without shaving your head. The commonest area for melanoma is the middle of the back where a woman’s bra fastens and both sexes get more melanoma on the breast than the necklace area. Women get more melanoma per square inch in the parts that hit a bicycle seat than they do the abdomen or thighs.

[piller]

Don't ignore skin that has changed color, texture, or is sensitive when it was not before. If you are not sure that your Doctor is right when they say it is nothing, get a second opinion.

[jdad]

I have a very thorough full body dermatology exam every year. What I thought was a tiny pink skin tag, on the left side of my nose (right by the corner of the eye), wasn't. 6 weeks after the radiation treatment was done I found another "something" on the left side near the ear. That got cut out. I've been clear for about 5 years now. The PDT is just a precautionary move.

I grew up on the beaches of Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz, been in outside sales for almost 40 years exposing the left side of my face daily, did a lot of fishing, and didn't use sun screen like a lot of us Boomers.

Annual visits to a good dermatologist are cheap compared to the alternative.

[Pitchy]

Prayers up for all concerned.

[marlinman93]

Man, I'm really sorry to hear all this David! I hope both of you guys are OK, and these health issues come out fine! Hate to hear about people reaching retirement age, and begin to have health problems.