PART 2: The Next Phase

My husband immediately made an appointment with the Mohs surgeon and we went in for a consultation. He took a look at the area and checked my neck for enlarged glands, and my scalp. He was straight forward. There is no way to know how extensive the surgery will be, but Mohs is the way to conserve the most healthy skin.

We made an appointment for the surgery, and it was a month and a half away. Too much time to fret. I became obsessive about reading the internet, looking for anything that could help me, wanting to know what to expect. The surgeon was going to be out of town until a few days before my appointment, but I did ask them to give me the earliest cancellation if they got any. They didn't, but it's a good idea to try.

I googled my surgeon and found mixed comments. There was a dissatisfied patient who claimed that the hole the doctor had left was too big. This has, in my opinion, nothing to do with Mohs and everything to do with the cancer itself. If the cancer has roots beneath the skin, it will require further excision to get it all out. The good news is that Mohs only takes the damaged skin, leaving as much of the healthy skin as possible. And there is no guessing. They look at the tissue and continue to excise until they have all the cancer out. That's why it's the safest way to go, as other techniques are only calculation. I would much rather have someone looking at the tissue and saying: it's all out, no more cancer cells, than guessing about this. You go in with cancer, you come out cancer-free.

I called my dermatologist with a list of questions I had written down from all the reading I had done. She was kind enough to share information with me. She said that she had missed a bottom layer during the biopsy, and that perhaps I only needed one pass. She gave me the dimensions of the area. She spoke about her experience sending patients to this doctor. All in all, she was very reassuring.