A Normal Guy's Nose

I look like a toucan. Or I look like I'm wearing one of those fake noses (you know, with the fake glasses and the mustache attached, but without the actual glasses and mustache).

I am, of course, severely bandaged up because I had my Mohs surgery this morning. I was in Panorama City for about five hours today having a rather substantial hole dug out of the tip of my nose and then having "flap" surgery to cover the hole back up. I drove home after making a spectacle of myself at the CVS pharmacy closest to the medical offices. Who knew how many people would want to see the guy with the big nose bandage buying white vinegar (it's for cleaning the wound, apparently, and I don't keep it around the apartment) and non-adhesive bandages? I have since been at home going in and out of consciousness. I snuck downstairs earlier to pick up the mail, but I'm thinking I may stay indoors for the remainder of the weekend.

The doctor was a very nice young man. Well, nice and very young might be more descriptive. He looked like he was about the same age of my students, but he's also very talented. It only took two times to get all of the cancer out, so he's a good cutter, I guess. He trained in Birmingham, Alabama, of all places, so we got to talk about the South while he was "excising" (such an odd word for such a strange procedure).

I've written before about the numbing shot that you get. Even the doctor admitted today that it's probably the worst part of the surgery. It does indeed hurt, and I had to endure it three times today, once for each of the excisions and once more for the flap. The good news is that I didn't feel a thing while all of this surgery was going on. The bad news is I'm feeling it all now. Thankfully, I have some pain pills to remedy that a bit. They are the generic version of Vicodin, so I guess it might be accurate to call them "Fake-odin." Doesn't matter, though, because they help to numb the pain. Doc told me that I didn't have to take them if I didn't want to, but who is he kidding?

Actually, I think the worst part this morning was having to look at myself. If you're squeamish, you might want to skip over this part. The doctor showed me the wound when we started discussing, as he put it, "how to put me back together." I managed not to cry this time, but it was far deeper and larger than the last time I had this cancer removed. It looked almost the size of my thumbnail. I wanted to cry, don't get me wrong, but not in front of him and his wonderful nurse and the two very kind lab technicians, who have to be in the room at all times to run the tests to make sure the cancer's all been removed. I couldn't imagine this deep of a hole healing as well as it did four years ago, so the flap it was. (The doctor didn't think a graft was a good idea given the location.) The other bad time with the mirror was after he had stitched me up (which took quite a while and a lot of stitches, believe me) and showed me my nose now. I looked like a mug shot. I hope this doesn't scar, but there are jagged lines up and down the right side of my nose. I'm so very grateful to be on Spring Break next week.

The week ahead looks to be a weird one. I have to wear this "pressure" bandage for two full days, and I'm sure it's not going to be pretty when I remove it. Then I have to clean the wound every day with a vinegar-and-water mixture and bandage it up after using a lot of antibacterial ointment. (I still think that's a funny word: "ointment"). The stitches are dissolvable, but if any are left next Friday when I return for a check-up, the doctor will take them out. Right now my nose is so swollen I can't breathe out of the right side at all. I'd imagine that's going to take a while to go down, given how much work there was involved.

I'm going to be all right. I know that it's so much better for me to have that cancer removed. I know this will all heal, and if it doesn't heal perfectly, I still have plenty of options to make it look all right. I know all of this. I do. Don't worry.

You want to know about the title of this posting, I suppose. The doctor told me that I probably healed so well the last time I had surgery to remove this cancer because I have "a normal guy's nose," meaning that it's pretty oily. The trick is keeping the wound moist, apparently, and this greasy skin is just the thing for that. Who knew that it would actually come in handy someday? I'm just hoping that when all of this is done, I still have a normal guy's nose.

I think it's time for another Fake-odin. And another nap.