The Nose Knows

and it doesn't smell fear. (It actually hasn't smelled anything in three days...) "That's actually a legitimate fear! She was rifling through my shit!"

On Wednesday I had the delight and pleasure of spending four hours having cancer cut out of my nose. How does cancer decide that the side of my nose is a good place to hang out?

A little background: I had a red spot on my nose for about six months. So back in January 2008, I went to a derm clinic where I work. After the craziest, worst visit ever, the doc told me it was acne. He diagnosed me by taking a scalpel blade and cutting into my nose. "Yep. I saw pus. Definitely acne." Now, I don't know about you, but I have never had a pimple for 6 months. ["Do it Harold. It's 6 months. It's a hockey season!"] I didn't buy it. But it took four+ months for the incision he made to heal so I hoped he was right. By August, it looked BIGGER! So, I found a "real" dermatologist-plastic surgeon and within 5 seconds of him looking at it he said, "I don't want to alarm you, but that has to come off right away." WHAT? SERIOUSLY? Official diagnosis: morpheaform carcinoma. I don't like the sound of that. Acne was sounding much more friendly all of a sudden.

The morning of my surgery I played hockey for two hours, got stuck in traffic and barely made my appointment. I'm thinking Freudian lateness. I figured if you have to have cancer cut from your body, you should at least get to skate beforehand!

When I got there and checked in, I sat down to see the following:

Cosmo Girl. Reader's Digest. Seventeen. Spa. PC World (I think this one was actually the doctor's private read.) American Cheerleader. (I didn't even know there was a magazine just for cheerleaders. Really? Weird. Is there a magazine for band geeks?) I almost got up and left. All of a sudden this seemed like not the place to be. I was surrounded by older folks...in their mid-70's to 80's--the Reader's Digest was for them. I guess the young girls who read those beauty magazines come in after school? And do we NEED Cosmo Girl to reinforce to millions of girls their low self esteem and the fact that less than 1% of them look like the girls in the magazines??? I did not want a doctor who seemingly focused his practice on the beauty, or lack thereof, of young girls. Too late. They just called my name, and pronounced it correctly. That never happens. Nurses all over MT and CO have called me everything from Bonita to Beverly. Strangely enough, I answer to those names....Okay. I'll give them a second chance. If they can sound out B-E-T-T-I-N-A correctly I'll see what they have to say.

I had a Mohs Procedure, where abouts the surgeon cuts out tissue, packs the wound with a pressure dressing, sends the cancer to pathology, looks for clear margins, then goes back in right away if he missed any cells and you do it all over again. Yes, I got the pleasure of going through it twice. Yeah for me. The best part is that they "recovery" you with all the other Mohs patients in a room with a TV, magazines, games, snacks, and surprisingly good coffee. The other nine patients and I bonded by telling jokes about our cancer. After chit-chatting and joking on and off throughout the morning they taught me that it was going to be okay and you really need to live each day to its fullest. Don't settle for second best. Don't do things that don't make you happy. You get one shot at this. Make the best of it. I showed them how to text from my cell phone. Helen texted her great-granddaughter and laughed until she cried. Oh, I also found a really good butt & abs workout on the ball in one of the magazines. Geraldine thought I should just tear it out and take it but I insisted on copying it into my notebook...drawing each move with intricate detail. She laughed and said, "There is no other patient in this room that will use that workout, sweetie. You just take it! If you see any good recipes, tear them out for me." She's a wild one!

The options for closing the wound: stitches or skin graft. I'm not that vain. I don't really care if I have a scar on my nose. I have no illusion that I will ever be in a model, so wrap it up and I'm out of here. Oh, and the skin graft??? They use fat and skin from your ASS. Um, no thank you. I took the stitches. You can keep that ass meat graft. Truth be told, the doctor decided stitches were the best treatment for me. I'm not sure I could have convinced him either way.
The best part is that I have a bandage that kind of rivals that of someone who's just had a nose job. I haven't decided if hockey brawl or deviated septum is the winning response to all those who gawk.

Tips:

1. If you think it's bad, it probably is. Don't take no for an answer.

2. Have a bottle of Grey Goose on hand because there is no way to scratch an itch under that bandage.

3. It will be nearly impossible to breathe out of your nose. Plan accordingly.

4. Oh, and you'll have no sense of smell, for a while.

5. There are a lot of nerve endings in your nose.

6. Great way to spend a day off. Um. No.

Here are some of the responses I got after telling friends and family that I had cancer in my nose. (Again, it seems like a WEIRD place to get it...)

*Wow. Really? That's crazy.

*Holy shit! What? Really?

*Is that all?

*Your new nickname can be Buck Melanoma Head!!

*That's fucked up!

*Let's go to Ireland!

*She wins by a nose!

*A third nostril will enhance O2 intake and help with endurance training.

*At least you lost all that weight so you're hot now and no one will even notice the hole in your nose.

*You could just throw a stud or hoop in the hole and no one will even notice--then you'll have a really cool piercing!

*They use butt-cheek skin for the skin graft?? Can I call you Ass Face???

And finally, a few words about fear.

["The fear's too much for a duck. It--it eats away at the soul! There must be kinder dispositions in far-off gentler lands."]

It's not fear, so much as apprehension. I'm a planner. I plan. ["Russians don't take a dump son, without a plan."] I want to know what's in store for my future. I know I can't know the LONG term future, but I like to know what I'll be doing, where I'll be, etc. at least for the next week. Two, three months makes me happier, but I'll settle for this week. Having never been through anything like this, I had no idea what to expect. I don't like that. I just want some inkling of what is going to happen. I run all aspects of my life like this. It is not fear of the unknown. Just...caution. Leeriness. Lack of trusting fate or putting my trust in others who can hurt me---with a needle and a very sharp knife. I'm also methodical in my approach to things. I want to see it. Feel it. Touch it. Watch it. Then try it. Try it again. Slowly. Slowly. A little faster. And a little faster still. I am a perfectionist. Problem is...most things in life don't react too well to perfectionism. You gotta roll with the punches. Now I'm rolling right into the weekend with some great plans: a mountain bike ride, some scrapping, some hockey, and maybe some BBQ'ing with friends. All will be planned, methodical, and perfect. Just how I like it! Hey, it's my weekend. Get your own.

"Fear is like a giant fog. It sits on your brain and blocks everything -- real feelings, true happiness, real joy. They can't get through that fog. But you lift it, and buddy, you're in for the ride of your life."