Pinched, Poked, Prodded and this time STUCK!

First of all, go over to Art's page and wish him a Happy Birthday. Today is the 20th anniversary of his 29th birthday!! (Pssst! that's not REALLY a picture of Art up top - I'm just funnin' him.)

And then, another item of interest. After reading through all the entries on my Google Reader this morning I wanted to leave comments on Yvonne's page and on Moody Gemini's page, but for the life of me I couldn't get the comment to register. When I would click the submit button all I would get was this page cannot be displayed. What's up with this? Anybody else had this trouble?

And then onto other business - yucky business. This may be too much information for some people. Remember a couple of weeks ago when I went to see the dermatologist and he Pinched, Poked, Prodded and Fried my body? Well, at that time I also had him check out a small, round lump close to my tummy button. He told me it was nothing to worry about, just a cyst and it would probably disappear on its own. But if it didn't - to come in and see him. Weeellll - over the weekend it tripled in size and started to hurt like a son of a gun.

Monday morning I called and he had had a cancellation, could I be there in 20 minutes. You've never seen anybody do the hustle as fast as I did. Considering I was still in my jammies when I made the call, and I live about 12 miles from the clinic, I strapped on my Superman cape, flew cross country and made it there in time. Ole says I must have broken the land speed records and I was lucky there were no highway patrols in the vicinity. Yup - I'm lucky that way because I admittedly have a very heavy foot.

Anyway, Dr. Derm looked at the lump, poked a bit and said, "Yup, it's got to come out." So he gave me a shot to numb the area, used what he called a punch and a tweezer and pulled this little puppy out. Then he held it up so I could see it and said, "Here it is, isn't it a pretty one?" It was about the size of a dime, all squiggly and lumpy and really ugly. I really didn't need to see it.

Then he came with his needle and thread and stitched me back up - 4 stitches, which are very sore this morning. Unfortunately this little spot is located right where the waistband of my jeans sit, not a good spot. Hopefully the tenderness will be gone by the time we leave on our bike trip because I've got a lot of layers of stuff that will have to ride on my waistline - jeans and chaps, etc.

Oh, well, cross that bridge when I get there I guess. I'm just glad I could get in as fast as I did because it didn't give me time to think about it. And now it's gone. Dr. Derm said if it had ruptured below the skin it would have caused some serious inflammation and would have been very uncomfortable. Something I really didn't want to deal when I'm away from home.

Anyway - because I didn't accomplish much yesterday in regards to getting the RV organized, etc., I better move it along today.

See ya - Love Lena
PS: Happy birthday AGAIN Art - have a great day.

Pinched, Poked, Prodded & Fried

That’s what happened to me yesterday. I had an appointment with a dermatologist. You know how when you get old you start growing all these warts and moles and age spots and all those really ugly things? Blech!! Anyway, I thought it was time to go have them all checked out since Lovely Daughter has been after me for several years to do this.

So like a good Mom I made the appointment, traipsed my body into his office and awaited his arrival. After the nurse did her thing – you know – played 20 questions with me and all that – she told me to disrobe and robe up again with that air-conditioned gown that’s open in the back. Now I’m pretty quick at changing – after all, how hard is it to get out of a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. This is the first time I can ever remember that the doctor has walked in on me before I was changed. There I was, standing in all my glory – well, I still had my bra and panties on (sorry if that’s TMI, Art – snicker), but hadn’t quite gotten to the backless gown yet.

The poor man was so embarrassed he started to glow, turned his back and apologized. I told him not to worry, as he couldn’t embarrass me. After all, he was going to see all the bare skin in a few minutes anyway.

This guy was an absolute gem. I found out he’s not an actual physician, but a nurse practitioner. I sure wish a lot of doctors had his bedside/tableside manner. He was so thorough and explained everything so well.

And he was so flattering. He told me he would never have believed I am as old as I am (but I’m not going to tell YOU) by looking at my skin. I’m one of those lucky ScandihOOvians – even though I’m fair skinned I’m able to soak up the sun, get a good healthy color and still don’t damage easily from the sun. He said that I’ve obviously done a good job of taking care of it. Soap and water, Folks, that’s it. But then I’ve never smoked either, so I’ve very few wrinkles. Guess I never thought much about any of this until I had this conversation with Nurse Derm.

Then we got down to business – getting rid of all those moles, warts and skin tags. OUCH!! Most of them were burned off with his little freezer gun thingie. That stung a little bit, but I’ve got a pretty high pain tolerance, so I made it through that just fine. The thing that really got me was the smell of burning skin – not a pleasant smell AT ALL.
So here I am today – minus all those Old Women Thingies, just a few scaly patches that will disappear in a few days.