health update

First off the bat, this is information only. I am not whining or looking for sympathy. There are many people in my family who are in way worse shape than I am and seriously ill. I know this. Don't remind me that my problems are small potatoes. I know. I got it.

But today I said something about stitches and the person said, "what stitches?" Explanations are in order.

In this old picture you can see that giant mole under my glasses. Click on it. Make it bigger. It's there. Mama had one just like it. It turned black and then she had it removed in 1972 and it was skin cancer. When mine appeared I though about it a lot. For 2-3 years now I've been wanting to go to a dermatologist to get it (an others) removed since I now have Obamacare. I always forgot to ask the doctor for a referral. I was determined to do it at this years appointment. Obamacare is being repealed, and the employer who provides it was just purchased. Who knows what happens next.

I finally asked the doctor for a dermatologist referral, he asked why. To keep it simple I said to get rid of the moles on my face. (There's 5, plus my rock.) He sent me to a plastic surgeon. "I wouldn't trust my face to a dermatologist."

So I went about a week ago. She only took off the bubble one under my glasses. All the moles on my face are normally not cancerous, but I *insisted* they remove the bubble one. Daddy picking me up at Freedom from a summer art class in 1972 is burned in my brain. That's when he told me the mole on mom'sface was cancer. (Now of course my siblings accuse me constantly of false memories, so this one is probably a figment of my imagination also. But I'm sticking with it.)  I really didn't care if the insurance said it was "cosmetic". It's ugly and it itched, and frankly got in the way of my glasses.

We decided to only take off the one. The others were very, very low risk. This one only had a slight risk. So they cut it out and sent it for biopsy as standard protocol. Most likely nothing to worry about.

Monday coming home from LC the phone rang. It was the doctors office. I was at the fourth flight of stairs and kept walking. I must have been breathing really hard because she asked me if I was okay. I was.

It turns out that the mole was a basal cell skin cancer. I'm going to have a second procedure at LVH 19th street to remove more skin. It's preventive. They don't want it to go into "deep" tissue. 99.5% curable. No biggie. Scar will be bigger. I tried taking a selfie but it was scary.

Second update. I was driving home from work about two, three weeks ago at about 9 pm at night. These buzzes of light were skirting around my right eye. Every time I reached a light I tried to find the source. But it was in the garage. And the house.  And then it stopped. I decided that the fairies from Angel's novels had attached themselves to me. Not a bad thought.

It the morning I googled it and they are called flashes and you're supposed to see an ophthalmologist. The roomie was going in a week so I decided to make my appt while I was there. But then that appt. was cancelled and rescheduled for Tuesday, but the blizzard came. So this morning I called. They had me in by 10:30.

My eyes still hurt from being dilated so much. I was there for two hours. Bottom line. It might be nothing or something. He doesn't know. I have to go to the retina doctor. He has a machine that will look in the back of the eye. He says it's uncomfortable. Oh goodie. Then we'll know for sure.

Oh, and I have cataracts on both eyes. Like mother, grandmother, sister ... like daughter