My Dermatology Surgery

Well, I made it through alive! I had three things removed. 2 of them I knew to expect (in fact, I initially went to request they be removed) so it was no surprise to me last week that he would say he wanted to remove them. The 3rd was a place on my leg that I've had for about 3-5 years. I was about 99% sure that it was a varicose vein, but when he looked at it last week he said, "oh..." with a very cautionary tone, and then followed up with, "I think that's actually a cyst... it needs to come out!" As a person with melanoma, and lymphoma that runs on both sides of my family, I'm generally pretty good about watching things and making sure they don't change color, shape, or size. Yes the thing on my leg got bigger, but it had also gotten to a size and stopped for over a year, so I wasn't too concerned. But apparently I should have been. I scheduled surgery less than a week from my initial consultation, which brings me to today. I was back with them for about an hour. First they deadened all the areas they were taking care of and then the Dr. came back and got to work. He "punched" out the place in my face and arm (it's a nifty little tool that is sort of like a drill... cuts right around and into the tissue and punches it out, very quick and with the least amount of tissue removal). Those went great. Then he had me turn over on the table so he could work on the back of my calf. I could feel pressure on my leg, so I knew he was starting, and then he said it... "Oh!" An exclamation... I was thinking, "this guy really needs to work on his reactions..." but then he finally said, "clear fluid just came out... I've never seen anything like this before..." And then a bit later the gal tech said, "wow... I've never seen ANYTHING like this...!" and I asked, "What do you mean?!" Her response: "It looks like a little marble!" And sure enough, it did... I saw it in the cup to send it to the lab... it looked like a little white marble. What did he think the cyst was? A clogged sweat gland that turned into a cyst! Hmmm... we'll wait for results to come back on all this, though, of course. So, now I'm all hopped up on Tylenol and I feel wiped out... but at least I know that I've gotten it all taken care of. I'll just keep praying that everything comes back from the lab with GOOD NEWS! Thanks to everyone who thought of me, prayed for me, whatever while I went through all this. I was quite scared about my leg... although, in my opinion the worst is yet to come... stitches removal! EEP!