I know I am a few days late posting this.... but I wanted everyone to see what I was dealing with before my Mohs surgery. Actually, it would have been better if I had taken a photo a month before this one.... this one is after they shaved off a chunk of my nose to do the biopsy.
The spot that you see on my nose is far more visible than it was before the biopsy. If you look at the right (as in my right) side of the area, that is what the whole thing used to look like. I am not an especially vain person and I didn't think there was anything wrong with it. In fact, I thought it was a blackhead or something that had become scarred over time.
I have papillary thyroid cancer, so that has been my main concern for about 2 years. A year ago, I was having a treatment and the nuclear medicine techy asked me what I was doing about the spot on my nose..... my nose? Oh that.... it is just a zit..... and I didn't think about it again.
Then, in the beginning of the year I had an annual visit to the OB/GYN. Yeah! Anyway, as we were touching base he says to me- well insisted actually- that I needed to get that spot on my nose looked at. You mean the zit? No, he says, I mean the almost classic looking basal cell carcinoma on your nose! Oh, that- well why didn't you say so?
Anyway, he basically made me swear an oath that I would make an appointment, and soon. So, I started looking at docs in the area and asking friends. I live on the Coast of Southern Georgia so we have a lot of sun and A LOT of dermatologists. After researching and researching, I decided I didn't want to just get the thing burned off because if it was cancer it could actually continue growing. That led me to Mohn Surgery.... that led me to my doctor. (I am not going to publicly give out his name, but if you contact me I will give it to you.)
My biggest fear was that it was on the bridge of my nose, which is rather thin skinned versus the side of the nostril area. My ob/gyn had told me that the scar wouldn't look worse than the original spot. Mind you, I didn't really think the original spot looked that bad.... but I was still worried. Especially, when I couldn't find pictures of people who'd had Mohs surgery on a minor spot like mine on the bridge of their nose.
They shaved off the part of the spot you can see is missing.... four weeks later I get the call that suprise, suprise it is skin cancer. The lab actually said they believed it was squamous cell carcinoma.... however, once the doc removed it and looked at it himself he said it was basal cell. Then, I am thinking- well if it isn't melanoma is it really worth it? Then the nurse told me this awful story of a girl that had like 3 inches of her face eaten by this type of cancer.... the whole shock you into submission tale.
So, I set the appointment and hoped to heck I would still have some resemblance of a decent nose afterward.
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