Me and Mean Mr. C

If you don't want to read this, I totally understand...

Last October I posted an article relating to the fact that both my parents died of cancer during the 64th year of their lives. Now that I was in my own 64th year, I was more than a bit concerned. If you didn't see it, and want to see it now, here is a link. 

I scheduled an examination by just about every specialist I could think of. I'm very happy I did that, because I immediately found out I had aggressive prostate cancer, a pre-cancerous polyp in my colon, and ten pre-cancerous spots on my skin. The spots on my skin were frozen off, the polyp was removed, and my prostate was removed. Here is a link (if you haven't already seen it) to the post relating to the prostate procedure.

At this point I'm feeling good! Everything has been taken care of, and I'm out of the woods (relative to my 64th year).  At least that is what I thought at the time.

I recently went to a one year follow-up appointment with my dermatologist. I figured he'd give me a look over and that would be that. Nope! I hit the skin cancer trifecta.

1. Melanoma
2. Squamous Cell Carcinoma
3. Basal Cell Carcinoma

Melanoma - A mole on my back that had gone from "keeping an eye on it" to a moderately aggressive (as per a biopsy) early stage Melanoma in less than a year. It was dealt with first, because if ignored, it will eventually kill you. The procedure was done under local anesthesia. A pretty good chunk (15 stitches to close the incision) was taken out of my back and sent out for pathology. The results indicated that the margins were clear, and that was that. Two weeks later we dealt with number 2.

Squamous Cell Carcinoma - This was on the right side of my neck (photo below). There was nothing on the surface that would indicate anything. I asked him to look at it because the area got kind of red when I shaved, or scratched there. The biopsy he took came back positive for cancer. Squamous Cell is sometimes referred to as "head and neck" cancer. This is the one I was most worried about, because it doesn't have to travel far to get into the neck muscles and/or the lymphatic system.  This surgery was also done under local anesthesia. The procedure is called Mohs Surgery. They take out chunk of tissue around the biopsy spot, and then do "on the spot" pathology. If the margins come back clear, you're done and they close the incision. If it's not clear (meaning that it has spread) they take out more tissue in the direction the cancer cells were headed. The tech then does pathology on the margins of that piece. Once again, if the margins are clear, you're done. If not, more tissue has to come out. He had to do it four times before the margins were clear. He called it "chasing the cancer." The REALLY good thing is that it had spread quite a bit, but traveled down my neck, instead of deeper INTO it. It took a bit over 2 1/2 hours from start to finish. Lot's of stitches to close it up. Nine days later we dealt with number 3.

Basal Cell Carcinoma - This was on the left side of my neck. The surgery went pretty much the same as with the Squamous Cell cancer surgery. It only took two tries to get it all though. After the margins came back positive from the first try, I asked if he would just go ahead and take out a much bigger chunk out and hope for the best. He agreed, and it came back clean. He closed it up (also with a lot of stitches) and hopefully, I'm done with cancer. 

 Basal Cell before. The red spot is from the biopsy. There was no other indication at all.

 Basal Cell after. 

The stitches come out tomorrow. Geez, when did I become an old man?

Squamous Cell after

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1. Capillary Thyroid Carcinoma
2. Prostate Adeno Carcinoma
3. Basal Cell Carcinoma
4. Squamous Cell Carcinoma
5. Malignant Melanoma
6. Pre-Cancerous Polyp in colon
7. 10 Pre-Cancerous spots on my skin

        All in five years, and four of them in the last 10 months.

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I almost forgot to mention that the first thing I did was get a complete physical exam. Everything came out perfect. Contrary to the fact that I seem to get cancer, I'm really healthy. Vitals and blood test results were all fantastic. 

There is some good news.  I got a bit of a "neck lift" from the two surgeries!

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