The day started out OK

[The_Traveler]

The day started out OK but tilted downhill just about the time I remembered that today was the day of reckoning with my dermatologist.
After years in the sun, I've developed an alarming, to me not him - he seems to handle the situation very well - profusion of actinic keratoses. Although these aren't really visible except to dermatologists and my wife (who knows the family income gets reduced if I die), I am always encouraged to have these treated so that the perfection of my ruggedly handsome face is never less than optimal.

In March and June I had a couple of treatments that involved someone daubing a sensitizing-solution on my face after which I get exposed to a high level of light at specific wavelengths. If you care to experience what that is like, an equivalent feeling can be achieved by spraying one's face with a thin layer of cooking oil and then positioning one's face really close to hot broiler coils. They do insist you wear goggles, though.

The dermatologist, who said I reminded him of a teacher he once had, said that those treatments weren't totally effective so now we go to steps 2 and 3. He did mention, with what I thought was a remarkably ambiguous expression, that he hoped we wouldn't have to go to step 4 because, as he said, 'that makes a real mess and we'll only talk about that later - if we have to'

He gave me quite a lovely brochure about step 3, a multi-page, four color brochure which signals that the medicine is expensive.
Inside there was calming text, explaining just how wonderful the medicine and then, in the spirit of getting the patient ready, were pictures of how patients' skin look 4 days after treatment, 7 days, 14 days and 29 days. I looked with marked dismay at the row marked 'mild reaction', forced myself to look at the pictures in the row labelled 'medium reaction' but, in an example of how one's brain responds to scenes of horror that the mind can't deal with, didn't see the row marked,'severe.'

Don't worry he said, 'a severe reaction occurs much less often than the others. I've only seen a couple of those this year.' Wouldn't that mean that one is about due, I thought.

Today, he said, for step 2, we will freeze a bunch of those spots and he proceeded to hose my face down with liquid nitrogen for an hour or so. Touch the end of a lit cigarette. Repeatedly. There, that's the feeling.

So I drove the 30 minutes home trying not to cry and now I just have a week to heal before I do step 3, assured by the 4 color brochure that next week there is only a minor chance my face will look like I had picked up a flamethrower rather than a razor to shave and hadn't noticed the mistake until I was through with my entire face. Not that bad.

But, after talking with Mr. Percocet, things don't seem so bad.

 

[cgipson1]

I have some issues with Actinic Keratoses also... luckily not on my face though... mostly back and shoulders. I have had the Nitrogen treatments... and they usually work pretty well. I prefer those to the acid treatments they do ( not very effective ). I can only imagine that having facial treatments like this is less than comfortable.

But then again, while I would consider you mildly cute (much like I consider a Pekingese to be cute)... surely you know there is a possibility that the treatments might even be an improvement?

(make comments about my girlfriend's depression, will ya! )

 

[Designer]

Chin up! I'll be praying for you.

 

[Karburn]

My dermatologist uses what I call "the blowtorch" to dispense little blasts of liquid nitro on to the most sensitive parts of the face. She's already carved a chunk out of my shoulder that turned out to be benign, but it's now an annual ritual to go in for this very specialized torture. I now have to wear a ridiculous hat with a 3" brim when I'm going to be outside more than 15 minutes. Since a Grand Am sports car race is typically a couple of days of outdoor shooting, the hat is now my constant companion.

I feel your pain and apprehension....literally. Hang in there.

 

[sm4him]

I've had that "blowtorch" to the face before, too--mine was right at the edge of my cheek and nose. Thought I was doing pretty good about it--very stoic--until I got out to the car, and then I burst into tears from the pain of that thing.
Fortunately, that's the only one I've had on my face so far. And amazingly, I've only had one other have to get the "blowtorch" action. My sister had what described as "Step 3" done to both arms a few years back. I will spare you the description of how that went, but at some point she ended up using a good bit of sick time just to avoid going out in public.

To date, I am the only one of five siblings who has NOT had at least one spot that was either melanoma or squamous cell carcinoma. All four of the others were, thankfully, successfully treated for theirs. But being the red-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned to the max girl that I am, it's a wonder it hasn't yet caught up with me. We used to spend pretty much all day, EVERY day out in the blazing sun with no skin protection whatsoever, from sunrise to sunset during the summers. We just didn't know any better.

Here's hoping that Step 3 will be blazingly successful and you'll never even have to give a thought to what comes next!!

 

[The_Traveler]

But then again, while I would consider you mildly cute (much like I consider a Pekingese to be cute)... surely you know there is a possibility that the treatments might even be an improvement?

Being compared to a Pekingese is a painful topic for me.
One of my wives left and I found a note saying she was leaving me for anybody else.
Someone told me she now had a new dog.
My suspicion was that they were seeing each other before the split.

 

[The_Traveler]

Chin up! I'll be praying for you.

Thanks for the thought, but not for me.
The last time I went into a church, the minister's head spun around three times, he started to speak in strange voices and teh roof caught on fire.

 

[The_Traveler]

My dermatologist uses what I call "the blowtorch" to dispense little blasts of liquid nitro on to the most sensitive parts of the face. She's already carved a chunk out of my shoulder that turned out to be benign, but it's now an annual ritual to go in for this very specialized torture. I now have to wear a ridiculous hat with a 3" brim when I'm going to be outside more than 15 minutes. Since a Grand Am sports car race is typically a couple of days of outdoor shooting, the hat is now my constant companion.

I feel your pain and apprehension....literally. Hang in there.

I've had that "blowtorch" to the face before, too--mine was right at the edge of my cheek and nose. Thought I was doing pretty good about it--very stoic--until I got out to the car, and then I burst into tears from the pain of that thing.
Fortunately, that's the only one I've had on my face so far. And amazingly, I've only had one other have to get the "blowtorch" action. My sister had what described as "Step 3" done to both arms a few years back. I will spare you the description of how that went, but at some point she ended up using a good bit of sick time just to avoid going out in public.

To date, I am the only one of five siblings who has NOT had at least one spot that was either melanoma or squamous cell carcinoma. All four of the others were, thankfully, successfully treated for theirs. But being the red-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned to the max girl that I am, it's a wonder it hasn't yet caught up with me. We used to spend pretty much all day, EVERY day out in the blazing sun with no skin protection whatsoever, from sunrise to sunset during the summers. We just didn't know any better.

Here's hoping that Step 3 will be blazingly successful and you'll never even have to give a thought to what comes next!!

To be honest, if I came up with something that required a really unpleasant (chemotherapy) or permanently disfiguring treatment, I'd think long and hard about whether I wanted so much to hand onto the side of the boat that long.

Having had a couple of friends who died relatively young after months of unpleasantness, I think that if the issue were to arise I'll just take the path that leads to the prettiest corpse and let all my female friends be sad over the chances they missed.

 

[kundalini]

No skin problems for me that I've seen a specialist for, but I do have the Michael Jackson thing going on with my neck and arms.

Buhuut, sometime next year I'm going under the knife for ACDF: Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion. This is the result of a Laminectomy which was the result if a whiplash, which was the result of a rear end collision caused by a young girl applying makeup on the morning commute to work on a highway where average speed goes from 75mph to 35mph within a quarter mile due to congestion. I was driving a small pickup without head restraints (does that give a clue to how long ago it was? ~20 years) and my head broke out the rear window. The only reason it's not an immediate need is because of an expensive cervical pillow from Dr. Scholls and some happy pills from Dr. Whatshisname.

Damn I hate getting old, but now I prefer that to the alternative. ldman:

Lew, I don't pray, but I can send white energy your way.

 

[ffarl]

Good on ya for getting it taken care of. My wife is suspect of every abnormality on my skin. I'm terrified of doctors.

 

[The_Traveler]

sometime next year I'm going under the knife for ACDF: Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion. This is the result of a Laminectomy which was the result if a whiplash, which was the result of a rear end collision I was driving a small pickup without head restraints (does that give a clue to how long ago it was? ~20 years) and my head broke out the rear window.
The only reason it's not an immediate need is because of an expensive cervical pillow from Dr. Scholls and some happy pills from Dr. Whatshisname.

You could save a great deal of money if you let me do this operation.
I've never done one but how difficult could it be?

 

[The_Traveler]

Good on ya for getting it taken care of. My wife is suspect of every abnormality on my skin. I'm terrified of doctors.

I think that when you think your wife is checking you for skin abnormalities, she's really looking for lipstick.

I told that to my wife and she said that, if she found lipstick, she'd try to identify the female so she could warn them that it wasn't going to be worth the effort.

 

[kundalini]

 

[ffarl]

I really don't think that's the case. She's a baker, and I think she would look the other way for just about anything but saying someone else's cake was better.

 

[cbarnard7]

You'll be alright, Lew. Hang in there.