Skin Deep, Part 2

by Charity and Allegra

This is a follow-up to a recent post about having the marking on our right cheek removed.

The dermatologist that we went to about a month ago was, as Laura put it, a quack.   We don't want to get into that now; the end result was that he referred us to a plastic surgeon that he knew and who supposedly could biopsy the area and leave a much less noticeable scar.  During the 10 days between the visit to Dr. Quack and the consult with the plastic surgeon, Rachel and I/Charity were very angry.

The plastic surgeon, Dr. M, was much more helpful, actually listened to us, and didn't bat an eyelash when we told him about our PTSD.  "I was born with it," we'd said, with a brief statement about how our PTSD was rooted in our mother's PTSD. We were relieved when Dr. M recommended a much less drastic procedure, a biopsy of two small spots in the area of the marking.  If it turned out benign, as we'd always believed, all we'd have to do is monitor it for changes.

The appointment was today.  We just wanted to get it over with, but Rachel was triggered again this morning when she started thinking about our experience with Dr. Quack.  Some of us take a while to process our feelings.  Rachel doesn't even want to admit that she even has feelings, so that makes the process even harder.

When the medical assistant led us into the treatment room, she asked us to lie down on the exam table so that she could prepare us by placing a--not sure what the term is....napkin? The thing a dentist uses....on our shirt collar.  We told her that were then going to sit up again because we wanted to talk to the doctor before he began, and we didn't want to talk to him while lying down.  We also noticed that there was a second door in the room--not a closet door, but a real door, leading to somewhere, and this bothered us.

So when Dr. M came in (through the same door that we had), we told him that we had a few questions.
Where did the other door lead?  (Autoclave area.)
Why did the consent form indicate one type of biopsy when we were having a different type?  (It's a standard consent form.)  We corrected it because we work with legal forms as part of our job, and we want to be very precise about what our consent was for.
How long will the procedure take?  (About 15 minutes.)
What will it look like when you're done?  A woman in the waiting room had a huge gauze bandage on her cheek. (Nothing like that.  A small bandage.)
Can you please tell us what you're doing each step of the way? (Absolutely.)

It went well.  We need to keep the bandage on until he removes it during the follow-up appointment on the  27th.

 

The photo on the left was taken by a co-worker on 1/13/2010.  The photo on the right was taken by our webcam today.  There's no significance to the redness on the right side of the second photo; it's just dry skin.  The lesser quality of the webcam camera makes it look worse than it is.

Now we wait.