Skin Cancer stinks

Just after I had Bay in 1999, I had a basil cell carcinoma on my right arm. I had never been a huge sun worshiper, but I must admit I had my ignorant days of going to the tanning beds and too many bad sunburns as a kid. After that little scare, I became very diligent about sunscreen for me and the girls. I have had pretty regular check ups with the skin doc and aside from some precancerous stuff I had a burn treatment for last year, things have been pretty routine. Back in December or January I noticed a little dry patch on my neck. By February, it had gotten pretty bumpy and scaly and quite frankly a little gross. I wasn't super concerned about it other than it didn't look very good and I found myself always wanting to make sure that side of my neck was covered. I went to my annual appointment with my OB/GYN and asked her to take a look at it. She didn't seem worried and said it looked like a wart. A WART? I have never had a wart in all my life so that alone kinda freaked me out. When I made an appointment for Bailee with the Dermatologist in April, I decided I may as well make one for me and get the thing removed along with a few other spots. It's pretty much procedure if they remove a mole etc, they send it in for a biopsy, so I was expecting a letter at some point stating that it all came back normal. So you can imagine the panic that sprang through me when I got a voice mail from the nurse saying they needed me to call them back in regards to some results. Honestly, I had been more concerned about a couple dark moles on Bailee's back that we hadn't planned on removing, but the Dr. felt we should. Those came back fine, it was that ugly wart of mine that was the trouble! The biopsy came back positive for skin cancer....a squamous cell carcinoma. So surgery was scheduled to get it cut out.  The surgery itself was pretty painless other than all the shots to numb the area. I was a little freaked out about the thought of them cutting into my neck and possibly hitting an artery. The doctor thought that was pretty funny since those arteries are a little deeper than that. I was surprised how big the incision ended up being. I knew it would be "football shaped" but thought it would be about half as long. I was sent home with this fancy bandage to wear for 48 hours. It made it very difficult to turn my neck at all which I guess in some ways was good as I wasn't to do anything too strenuous.

 After I removed the bandage it looked like this. I ended up with 12 stitches outside and I think she said they did 4 inside that will dissolve. It bruised over time and got pretty sore for several days.

 After 10 days I went back to have the sutures removed. By this time the wound was itching like crazy!!

 At nearly a month out .. .. I think it's looking pretty good. She did it as close as possible to a crease line so that hopefully it won't be quite as noticeable over time. The only problem now it that my body has reacted strangely to those inner sutures and I have these tiny bumps where they are/were. Hopefully that diminishes too.

I am so glad they caught it and that at this point all the margins came back clear. Sadly, because this is my second, I am that much more at risk and therefore my life will forever involve skin check ups with the Dermo. But I won't complain, things could be worse!