The Derm Wife gets Skin Cancer

Would you believe I have a basal cell carcinoma on my forehead.

And its a classic story along the lines of the shoemaker's kids never having shoes.

I have had this yucky, scabby, scaly thing on my forehead for weeks, maybe months. It started out small enough, but bugged me because every time I washed my face with any kind of loofah or washcloth, it would ooze and bleed. And of course I couldn't ever keep my hands off of it. Pick, pick, pick...

So what's a girl to do? Well, this girl would periodically ask her dermie husband what it was, that it looked weird and I thought it was something, but he said it was nothing. Actually, he called it a picker's papule, if there actually is such a term...and told me to stop picking.

In the meantime, it got bigger and I would ask about it periodically to be reassured that if I left it alone it would disappear.

Until I was in the clinic the other day, and in the course of casual conversation with the resident who practiced on my forehead with my last botox injections, I asked for a second opinion. Ten minutes later I found myself in an exam room, under bright lights and the subject of speculation by another derm as to the possibility of having a basal cell cancer, and walked out the lucky recipient of one skin biopsy, but not until the referral had been backlogged in.

This caused a little bit of discussion, "No way, that's not a basal cell..."

But guess what...it was. So now I have to go back for Moh's surgery to have it taken out.

Go figure. The staff derms miss the call and it was made by a resident.

The dermatologist's wife ends up with skin cancer.

At least it's the "good kind."

I have some other really intriguing stories to share, but they will have to wait.

Peace.