Instead of fun and games this week I’d like to write about what I call “the outside disease” because most of the people I’ve met with skin cancer lived their life outside in the sun, like farmers, ranchers, roustabouts, roughnecks and roofers. Even though I occasionally sit at a desk I’ve always been an outside guy. Whether it be working in the oilfields as I did in my younger years, ranching, farming or running cross country, I’ve always subjected my body to the sun. Foolishly, as it turns out.
Back 60 years ago when I ran with my shirt off and never used sun screen, it wasn’t really common knowledge that such indecent exposure could cause skin cancer as one matured. Had I known then what I know now I’d have worn long sleeved shirts like real cowboys do. I’d have worn a big cowboy hat instead of a ball cap and a steel hard hat with a brim instead of a plastic one without one.
Believe it or not, I was first diagnosed with skin cancer by a dentist, not a dermatologist. I’d had this spot on my nose for over a year that would bleed on a regular basis but I attributed it to the fact that my glasses were too tight on my nose. If my dentist hadn’t advised me to see a skin doctor I’d have probably ended up like my good friend Steve who had to have his nose removed. Although Steve’s skin cancer wasn’t caused by the sun but by being frequently sprayed with Agent Orange in Vietnam which was used to defoliate the jungle.
I watched Steve courageously go through several operations and believe me, I’ve had a lot of health issues but I’ve never experienced anything like Steve did. So when the skin doctor biopsied my nose and said it was a cancer I was a little concerned. Luckily it was a basal cell cancer which is not nearly as bad as a melanoma, which I would end up having a few years later when the doc took a big scoop out of my back. Melanomas are not to be trifled with and I’ve known two different men who died from one.
For the carcinoma on my nose they did what they call a Mohs Surgery in which the doc removes thin layers of skin one layer at a time and examines each layer under a microscope to determine if any cancer remains. This procedure continues until only cancer-free tissue remains around the edges. Eight of us began the procedure and one by one we’d have to be numbed up every hour and then the doc would go to work with his scalpel. In my case I was given 31 shots of lidocaine over the course of my surgery and I think I felt every one!
With Mohs, if you’re lucky you might only have to see the doctor twice, once to have the skin cancer removed and another to sew you up. You go in once an hour until the doc thinks he’s got “clean edges” and I asked my doc what’s the latest he’d ever had a patient be finished. The patient had been repeatedly numbed once every hour from eight am to eight pm! So I felt extremely lucky I only had to go back in three times. One of my fellow patients that day was a lady with a cancer ON HER EYELID and let me tell you, she was as anxious as a sore-uddered momma cow with a buck toothed calf!
After some reconstructive surgery one inch away from my eyeball I didn’t have to have another Mohs surgery until they found another basal cell carcinoma on the top of my ear. Afterwards I had to wear a large bandage that made me look like I was mocking Donald Trump after he got shot.
Now I have another cancer about half an inch from my eye and another Mohs surgery is in my near future.
Initially I tried to write about the humorous side of skin cancer but I concluded there is none. I know that 99% of you probably know about the dangers of skin cancer but for those of you who don’t… just remember my friend Steve. Believe me, skin cancer is no laughing matter and you might want to consider getting checked out.
I’ll get off my soapbox now.
