At some point in my childhood a mole started forming on my arm. It started as a tiny dark spot, very gradually becoming slightly larger, so that when I was in my twenties people sometimes asked if I had a tattoo on my arm in the form of a dot. I quite liked the mole. But then it started growing thicker and changing colour. Naturally I became quite concerned, with all the skin cancer propaganda, and - for me personally also quite natural - I decided not to see a doctor. I’d rather be ignorant than diagnosed with skin cancer. I had a friend look at it who was just doing her dermatology-internship, and she wasn’t very concerned, although she did tell me to go see a doctor. Some years ago when I went to see a doctor for something entirely unrelated I had him look at it and he suggested I go to a dermatologist, which I found too much trouble.
The last years however it also started to itch every now and then. The first few times I was sure I had a mosquito bite, but at some point it became undeniable that it was the mole itself. Scary. But still no reason to go and see a doctor specifically. So I waited until I had another, unrelated, issue to see a doctor about (nothing special – no worries). She pulled out her skin-problem-book and couldn’t find the answer there, so she suggested she talk to her colleague who is specialized in “minor surgery”. Because I had given the receptionist my home phone number, but am of course never at home when the doctor is at work, I didn’t think she would actually ring, and I felt better about the mole just by having it mentioned to a doctor again (she said “It’s probably ok, but with such things it’s always better to have them removed”). But she hunted down my work number (I had told her where I work) and told me her colleague was willing to cut the thing away.
So, brave and responsible as I am trying to be, I planned this minor surgery a month before my trip to US/EU, just as I got travel insurance, a NZ travel credit card, new tyres on the car, and more such responsible things.
Because the doctor and the receptionist had told me “it is a very minor thing, we always plan 30 minutes but it doesn’t take that long, yes you will have full use of your arm immediately following the surgery, it’s just a small cut and some stitches”, I was totally relaxed and not worried. So I walked in, lalala, met the doctor, he drew the cutting-lines, injected some local anesthetics (“aaauuuuuwwww”) and started cutting, while I looked the other way and we discussed greenhouse gasses and GPS. Soon he started rummaging for the stitches and informed me that with my young and healthy and beautiful skin, all is easy and will soon be done. He started stitching. He asked about Amsterdam. I was getting a bit hot and sweaty. He pulled on the thread and although I couldn’t feel the pain, I felt the pulling. I tried to breath deep breaths and keep focused on the differences between Chch and AMS. I felt weird. Oh oh, I knew this feeling, I will faint if I don’t keep breathing. Let’s just stop the chitchat and be impolite, don’t answer the doctor, just BREATH. Wow, am I cold, or hot?? The doctor asks “hey, are you ok?”
Next thing I was on this square in Italy, lying in a hammock drinking a cool glass of water while around me is the busy yelling of the Italians. Woaw, sooo relaxing to be in this hammock …
“Nina! Nina! NINA!! Nina you fainted! Can you hear me?!” the doctor is holding my feet, two nurses are grabbing my arms. I feel infinitely better. “Haa!” I say. “Ha! Oh! Sorry! Wow! I had this weird dream … I feel soooo much better now!!”.
They pulled me up and I was told to lie down on the stretcher. A dribble of blood was running down my arm, the thread hanging from somewhere within that arm. Every piece of formerly sterile equipment was on the floor. The doctor washed his hands again, the nurse got new sutures and scissors, and I said “I am soooo sorry” 500 times. Then we continued. Lying down was much better, but now it was a difficult task to look away from my arm, that was lying on my belly, where the doctor started stitching anew. “I wasn’t so happy about that first attempt anyway”. He kept pulling through my flesh forever while I got a stiff neck from looking to the other side, where the nurse put down some biscuits and a glass of water for later (“Now listen to me sweetie, you have to guard those biscuits. He (the doctor) hasn’t had lunch yet”).
When he was finally done I got up and had to sit for a while, eat my biscuits and wait for my blood pressure to get back to normal. It didn’t (“what is your pressure like normally?” eeeehm … no idea, just … normal …), but because it was improving and I live only 10 meters away, the nurse let me go home. I had to eat lunch and sleep.
Well, I kept feeling a bit dizzy the rest of the day, and by nightfall the thing started itching and pulling tight, and I wished I had never done this. The next morning I felt fine, it was still itching but I guess it should, so I took the bus to work. After 10 minutes in the bus I felt dizzy again, but didn’t want to move so stayed in the bus. Things got slightly better at work, and because I didn’t want to get on the bus again, I stayed at work. Going home then was fine.
The next week the nurse took off the bandage, and said “Ooh! Did it itch? I think you’re allergic to this bandage, look your skin is all red”. Great. I thought the itching was just from the wound… She put on another smaller bandage and told me to keep it on as long as possible. Last week it sort of fell off, and it also looked pretty dirty, so I took it off and protect the scar now with factor 500-million sunscreen. The mole was tested in a lab and it wasn’t any malignant tissue, so no worries about more such things to come. Glad that is over.
