SUNSCREEN, Hats, Long Sleeve Shirts - No Excuses!

[DOC]

Hey gang, you are some of my favorite people so unless you want a frontal lobotomy like this, protect yourself from the sun!

Don't worry, I'm not going to die.  Well some day, but not from this.  It was a superficial squamous skin cancer that they did not get all of the first time, so I told the doctor, no more of this conservative approach, take more than you think you need to, and then when you think you have taken way more than enough, take another inch.

I don't have time for this non-sense, there are fall outings and gold to find.  

SUNSCREEN & HATS Long Sleeve shirts!

I just can not over-emphasize how important it is to protect yourself from the sun. You are still getting damaging UV rays when it is overcast. So protect your head, your face, your neck your arms, basically anything exposed.

 

Look at my head! I wasn't always bald, all of those spots are sun damage, that came from never wearing a hat.

 

As soon as by frontal lobotomy heals up I am going to have BLUE Light Treatment. They paint the skin with a chemo type of medication that targets any cancerous or pre-cancerous cells. They let it sit on your skin for a couple of hours as the abnormal cells absorb the medication. They then expose your head and face to the light they use that activates the medication inside the abnormal cell and kills it.

 

This is all sort of a pain, but it is not the first lesion I have had removed. The key to this is constant vigilance for anything weird on your skin. Look out for small red scaly or flaky spots that just do not seem to heal up.

 

Now before you all freak out, most common skin cancers do not metastasize if caught early enough. That does not include Melanomas. But even then, if you get them early enough there is a good chance you will have a full recovery. So if you ever get something on your skin and say to yourself, "That's weird never saw that before." Go to a dermatologist immediately! Do not take a "I'll wait and see attitude," Get it taken care of. 98% of the time it is going to be a benign skin keratosis. No big deal, the doctor will freeze it and gone. The other percentage is that it is going to be something a little more serious that you caught in time.

 

I really feel strongly about this because if I had known what I know now when I was younger, man I would have been a lot more cautious. Protect your grand babies and kids from sunburn ALWAYS! Early sunburns can lead to the problems I am experiencing now. Remember the skin is the largest organ of the body.

UPDATE:  So the first surgery, the pathology came back that there was residual Squamous cell.  I found this out only after I asked the doctor for a copy of the pathology report.  This first dermatologist was not a MOHS surgeon.  When I originally asked him how the report looked, he said.  "It looks pretty good, we'll do the blue light treatment and you'll be good."  I said well does it say you got it all?  He said, "Well you never know if you got it all."  WTH?  Of course you know if you got it all the pathology report tells you if you have clean margins or not.  So after I asked for a copy of the report it says, residual Squamous cells on the left margin.  In plain ENGLISH, he did not get it all.

So based on what I read here and Rob's experience I found a MOHS surgeon that had to cut two more giant chunks out to GET IT ALL.  He told me he 100% got all of the cancer and all of the margins are 100% clear.  MOHS is 99% effective in eliminating early skin cancers.

So I had to be cut on again, but at least this time I'm clear.  And it was amazing how cleanly the incision healed up this time because there was no residual cancer interfering with the healing process.  The second and third picture are the MOHS surgery.  After he got clean margins he said, well that was the easy part.  The hard part is getting this stitched back together.  He said I know you are not squeamish about this kind of stuff, do you want to know what I have to do?  I said yes!  I wish I could watch.  He said I am going to have to make the incision longer and I am going to have to cut down to your skull and cut under the meat and loosen it from the skull.  Then I will overlap those pieces of meat and stitch them back together so it will pull the skin closer together so I can stitch that closed.  No way I can just pull on the skin, it is too delicate and the sutures would just rip out.  So that is why the final stitches in the third picture is so long, it was a matter of being able to close the chunk taken out of my head.  

He told me I would have a swollen and maybe black eye on that side because the muscle he was pulling on and stretching runs down beside my eye.  Well I was pretty swollen and it was painful for a couple of days.  Nothing an ice pack and some Ibuprofen didn't help.

I appreciate all of the information about Mohs surgery.  I would not have know that was an option.

Doc

Edited January 4, 2019 by DOC

[way2cool]

You should wear one of these......       Seriously I am glad your OK.

Edited October 10, 2018 by way2cool

[nuggethunting]

Hey Doc,

   I moved this post here to the main forum.   I agree, wear Sunscreen and long sleeved clothing.  I had a small round red circle looked at last year, maybe about the size of half of a dime.  It was Skin Cancer, had it removed with the MOHS surgery.  They ended up taking about 3 times the area, the cut out area was at least a quarter, maybe half dollar size.  I couldn't believe it, but they removed it all in one attempt.  

That all being said, there are some studies that show some sunscreen with chemicals could be causing skin cancer ..... Go figure, what do you believe.  Are the chemical in the sunscreens today causing a reaction, or are they truly helping you?

[BrownNugget]

This is all good stuff.  I’m very guilty of not protesting myself good enough or not at all.  The neck is so vulnerable with what we do.  Thank you both for your stories.  

Doc you gotta come up with a story for that scar.  Maybe something like you had a real mellow target you were investigating and as you got down to it you hit an IUD that sent hot metal into your scalp?  

Edited October 12, 2018 by BrownNugget
Don’t know how to spell or proof read

[Old Tom]

7 hours ago, BrownNugget said:

This is all good stuff.  I’m very guilty of not protesting myself good enough or not at all.  The neck is so vulnerable with what we do.  Thank you both for your stories.  

Doc you gotta come up with a story for that scar.  Maybe something like you had a real mellow target you were investigating and as you got down to it you hit an IUD that sent hot metal into your scalp?  

Or maybe he was praying to the 'Porcelain god' and the seat came down and hit him.

   Old Tom    

Edited October 13, 2018 by Old Tom

[one4gold]

My thoughts , but I must add this to help others out. All previous posts here are correct, I would also like to add that for any members here or friends of members that do any type(s) of welding and others UV  procedures! Those procedures do the same things , and maybe much faster than exposure to just sun. Protect yourselves friends.