My appointment was at 9 am on Monday to have skin cancer, the size of a dime removed from my lower right leg. The biopsy, taken a month earlier, showed it to be basal cell cancer. After checking in at the front desk of the Advanced Skin Center in Roseburg, I was instructed to wait in the second waiting room until my name was called. Most the patients in the waiting room were old men, some with bandages on their noses, faces, arms and God knows where else. It looked like a room filled with the walking wounded. Mohs surgery involves cutting out the tissue with cancer, having it examined by the pathologist and if the edges of the tissue is free of cancer cells they stitch you up. If it is not clear of cancer cells more cutting is performed until it become clear. Some people could be in here all day. I have been through this procedure before and never had to go back for a second cutting. Medical staff personnel walked through the waiting room carrying towels, garments and other medical supplies. Soon a young woman, who was a medical assistant appeared calling out a name. Not getting a response she yelled out the name and an elderly man responded and off he went following the young woman. I got the impression some of these gentlemen had a hearing problem in addition to skin cancer. After waiting a half hour my name Mike was called out, and off I went to an examination room where the medical assistant introduced herself, asked a few question and proceeded to injecting a numbing substance around the area that would be removed. After a couple minutes she poked around the area asking if I could feel anything? It was totally numbed and off she went to get the surgeon. The surgeon looked like a man that had been up most the night, in desperate need of coffee with those big telescope lenses fasten to his glasses, like the ones a dentist wears. He was a man of few words as he put on rubber gloves, picked up a scalpel and quickly did his business placing the chunk of flesh in a glass container the medical assistant was holding. As he left the room he told me it would be an hour before he would have the pathology results done. I asked the medical assistant if he was the pathologist too, and she replied yes. He was a busy man and no wonder he looked tired. The medical assistant applied a pressure bandage to my wound after cauterizing it to stop the bleeding and took me back out to the waiting room.
While sitting in the waiting room for the results, an older couple sat down next to me. The man told me they had come all way that morning from Port Orford on the Oregon Coast. We got to talking as he told me they lived up Elk River, which I was very familiar with when I worked for the Forest Service in Gold Beach back in the 1980's. He mentioned a few names of people that I had known including some loggers. Soon his name was called and off he went. Then another man sat next to me asking if he was in the right room. I asked what he was here for and he did not seem to know. He had come from Cottage Grove and said he had been here before to have something on his face looked at. As we were talking I heard a man call out William, my first name which I usually don't respond too. Everybody looked around as nobody responded, until I asked what is the last name and he said Burke, and off we went to another section of the facility where I was told to my relief the tissue was clear of cancer. Here I was stitched up and a large compression bandage was applied from my knee down to my foot to keep the leg from swelling. I was instructed to keep the leg elevated for a few days and not to get the bandage wet for week. A real challenge for taking a shower. After going to the front desk for scheduling appointments for the bandage removal in a week and in two weeks for the stitches to be removed, I walked out the front door with a new lease on life or at least until next July, when I'm scheduled for my six month full body exam. I still wonder if that man from Cottage Grove ever found out what he was there for?