My appointment this week actually went fairly well, although I wouldn't say that it was at all without pain. I went into this one completely paranoid beyond belief that the graft was falling off my ear, and quite frankly this was making me incredibly anxious, upset, and downright angry. Looking back on this, I had a complete right to feel these things based on the information that I was given. I had asked if it was normal that an outer layer of skin on the graft would fall off, exposing a fairly red and irritated looking skin underneath, and told 'no', that it wasn't normal whatsoever. You can probably see how this whole tornado began inside my mind. I also looked at pictures online of other people's reported ear graft situations and none of them look even remotely like mine.
In any event, upon arriving at my appointment, in a much worse mood than normal, they looked at my ear and the doctor promptly said, "No, that looks fine. It's just healing". I was a bit dumbfounded at first but after more conversation, etc., I realized that if nothing else my worries had been in vain, and actually I was okay with that if I didn't have to go through another graft and so on. This is partially what you get from looking at the internet (never trust the internet...I swear).
Of course, before I could even really digest this news, I was being jabbed with needles in the back of my head and, before I knew it, yet another chunk of scalp was removed. This time around, I finally got a 3 passer (hooray for me! Well, not really), meaning it took 3 passes to get all of the cancer out. I really don't mind the passes that much except for the extended time it takes since by then you're already numb and the actual passes themselves are fairly quick. I will say, though, that something about this place on my head made me feel more pain than I normally do, and it seemed like the doctor was having a hard time getting me fully numbed. Another thing I noted was a very disturbing squishy noise which I can only imagine was my skin being...well...I don't know...something'd. I was too afraid to ask and frankly didn't really want to know.
I never look forward to the closing of the surgery spot and I thought this one in particular would be really horrific. Surprisingly, it seemed to go faster than the others. I guess you just never really know what to expect in these procedures OR dare I say I'm getting used it, which is a bit frightening, if so. Next thing I knew, I was out the door and driving home yet again after 5pm, whereas I arrived at 1pm.
I was told once that I'd get a pretty bad headache from this procedure. What I actually got instead, though, was more like the feeling of being hit over the head very hard with a hammer. I'm not sure how some patients call this a "headache" because to me a headache is a very specific thing, and having been hit in the head with a baseball and other various objects over the years I've never equated that unique feeling with having a headache. Needless to say, my head started pounding unbelievably in the middle of the night, waking me up, and leaving me to where there was no possible position on the pillow where I wasn't feeling some sort of pain from one of my many wounds.
Two days later, the "hammer" feeling is still there but has at least gone down to something more manageable. Today, I got my stitches out on the front of my head, basically the area I had done the previous week, and so I'm slowly starting to look a bit more presentable. I'm actually starting to feel a little less paranoid about my ear but it still looks pretty horrendous, and I wouldn't wish the visual of it upon anyone. The few times I have been out of the house in public, I do what I can to kind of keep it hidden although that's fairly impossible.
I also got a special "bonus" at my appointment this week. One of my cats had given me a very loving head butt the day before directly to my nose...you know, the area that's still healing...and I promptly let out a yelp because I was shocked at how much it hurt. Then, I noticed blood dripping downward and so I brought it up to the doctor towards the end of the appointment. She unfortunately dived right in, well, literally, and started poking at the wound over and over from which I was literally screaming and had tears running down the side of my eyes just slightly. It was incredible how much this hurt. They always say that love hurts and I had to have a talk with my cat once I got home.
We're of course going into a holiday weekend in which I thankfully have 4 days off. I was slightly afraid that it would be fruitless due to this latest set of wounds but I actually think I might be okay. Here's to hoping, and with some luck I'll get back to music. In the meantime, everyone please keep their digits intact, and for crying out loud don't shoot a gun at the sky for the bullet always lands somewhere. Happy 4th!
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