Mohs

I had my Mohs surgery today. It took several hours, but they were able to get all of the affected cells. I have such a clear peace of mind finally having this ordeal over! When my doctor was finished, she came in the room and said "Congratulations! It is gone!" What a great feeling! The Mohs procedure is precise and takes so long because they remove the lesion and surrounding skin and then freeze sections to examine the cells microscopically. If they see that there is not a clear margin around it, they will come back and take more. The stitches took the longest amount of time. Dr. Chiller was amazing - very sweet, witty and definitely qualified. She really wanted to try and keep my scarring to a minimum, but she also needed to take out all of the cells. At the end of the surgery, the site was an inch wide. She warned that the scar would be 3:1 larger than the site. Once they were finished and showed me the incision, I can say that I was truly shocked at the size of it. But at this point, I am just thankful (scar and all) to have this whole ordeal behind me. I have to be very careful about lifting, exercising, etc. for the next couple of months - any tension or exertion can cause my incision to pull and can cause a larger scar. At the beginning of all of this, the "nubbin" was a little larger than a dime, close to the size of a nickel, but as you will see below, the incision is MUCH larger. (sigh)