More Mohs Surgery

two grinches

Last Thursday I went to the plastic surgeon's office. I wore my grinch face mask as it mirrored my mood at having more skin cancer. It was ironic that the grinch greeted me in the waiting room. I was scheduled for Mohs surgery to remove the two basal cell carcinomas they found on my scalp. I had a tiny one in my hair on the left-hand side towards my forehead, and a larger one further back in my hair on the right-hand side. 

Dr. Mu was my surgeon again - she removed the squamous cell and the basal cell hiding below it from my nose in December of 2019. While she was unable to get clear margins on either of these after the first excisions, at least she was able to get all of them in the second cut. The one on my nose took five tries!

After she was done Dr. Freeman came in to do the closings. He discussed the pros and cons of stitches versus staples, and we decided to do the staples this time. I have not had them before, and it sounds just like you think it would. Imagine someone holding a staple gun up to your head and firing away. It took 8 staples to close the one on the left and 14 to close the one on the right. 

Mohs followed by staples

hair loss

I was able to manage the pain with Tylenol, which is good as stronger drugs make me sick. The larger wound did bleed a bit that night, so I covered it with Neosporin and a gauze pad. Though I was advised I could wash my hair after 24 hours, I chose to wait an extra day to do so. A large chunk of my hair came out, I'm guessing from the area of the large incision. I'm not sure why they didn't just go ahead and cut the hair in that spot. While the dried blood came out with the double shampooing, the solution Dr. Freeman used to clean my head before closing up the incisions did not all come out. I can still feel it caked on my scalp. I guess I'll need to pick on it a bit before the next shampoo.

Next week I go back in to have the staples removed. Hopefully that won't be too bad.

Floating Away

We have just returned from a road trip to St. Louis. Because it takes more than 12 hours to get there, we decided to spend the night in Frankfurt, Kentucky on July 8th. There are a number of whisky distilleries in the area, and we wanted to check out a couple of them. I don't like whisky or bourbon myself, but several of the distilleries have historic buildings and/or beautiful grounds and I'm always up for a photo adventure. This would be our third attempt at doing this as each previous try resulted in a rainout. As (bad) luck would have it, we were rained out this trip as well. 

Trying to make the best of the situation, there was enough of a break that we were able to check out the Josephine Sculpture Park on the night of arrival. The tagline for the park is "where art meets the earth", and you can view nearly 70 sculptures on their 30 acres of land. The park is free and open to the public, and we enjoyed the wildflowers as much as the pieces of art.

Josephine Sculpture Park

On Saturday we finished our drive to St. Louis. We spent the first two nights in a hotel so that we could have the flexibility to come and go as we pleased. We had dinner that night with our good friend Diane, and it was great to catch up with her. Sunday morning we went to the Missouri Botanical Garden, which is one of my favorite spots in all of the United States. They are in the middle of a large construction project, adding a new entrance, events space and enlarged gift shop. That was followed by a stop at the ever-beautiful Forest Park, and lunch at Imo's Pizza. We were blessed with a beautiful morning, with lower temperatures and humidity. Later in the day we visited with my late sister's family, whom we had not seen since her funeral. It was nice to see them under happier circumstances.

Missouri Botanical Garden

Forest Park and the City Foundry

Monday we picked up a friend of ours and went to check out some new developments (at least new to us) in St. Louis. One of the areas was the City Foundry, Once housing the Century Electric Company, the 15-acre site is now home to businesses, a large food court, and an entertainment hall. From there we went to Union Station to see the St. Louis Wheel (a large ferris wheel) and take a peak at the St. Louis Aquarium. It's always fun for me to go to Union Station as my dad took the train in and out of St. Louis when he was stationed at Jefferson Barracks during WWII. It was nice to see the station bustling even though it was a Monday afternoon.

City Foundry & Union Station

The rest of the week was filled with playing pickleball with some of my lady friends, visiting my long-time hair stylist for a cut and lunch, and a Cardinals baseball game followed by a stop at Ted Drews for some frozen custard Friday we drove 3 hours south to a campground to join the SWT team for their annual float trip. This year it took place on the Gasconade River, which I had not floated on before. Despite the high temperatures (98 degrees on Saturday), we had a fun time and it was great to see everyone again.

rain delay

On Monday we left St. Louis at 6:45 a.m. to drive home. We decided to drive straight through, and it was a challenge. The day began with fog in Illinois, then we had heavy rains in Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina. A stalled car on eastbound I-40 and a bad accident on westbound I-40 led to numerous delays. It took us over 13 1/2 hours to get home. I'm ready to stay put for awhile.