Picato Day 7

So I can't believe the dramatic change. I have been drowning my skinwith a layer of vitamin E oil and then a layer of frankincense. The vitamin E has soften the hard, thick scaly scabs which I have gently been able to roll away from my skin. I feel more confident to go out in public now. I just look like I have a bad case of eczema.
My skin is itchy and I feel normal again. God I hope this is the end of the carcinoma. I don't go back to the Doctor until 6 weeks now.
I am going to apply frankincense every day from now on as a preventative measure.

Picato Day 6 - A New Dawn

Picato Day 6
Finally, I'm seeing some improvement.  I spooked myself yesterday.  Looking at all the support material and websites, I couldn't find any pics that showed a reaction as severe as mine. But today, I'm looking feeling much better and will be ringing the Skin Clinic to make sure I'm right on track.

 I smothered my skin in Vitamin E, Coconut and organic Frankincense once again.  Before going to bed I applied Vitamin E and Frankincense and I think that made the world of difference. The photos don't show it but my skins less angry.

Day 5 Picato 
Today, I'm feeling pretty low.  I've woken up with a swollen face again and hard scabby shell on my face.  It is itchy, dry and stinging.  I'm feeling low as I'd hoped my Monday or Tuesday I could go out in public with just a few sores on my face but this is just major and not looking to ease off any time soon.
I have a show and run cool water over my face, which softens the scabs.  When they have dried off a little I apply coconut oil and frankincense oil.  It smarts a little, it didn't yesterday. I also applied vitamin E yesterday.

I have bought some surgical masks to cover my face.  I have 3 public events booked over the next 2 days.  Do I go and cover my face? Do I just go, meeting strangers saying "this is who I am", or do I cancel? I don't know what to do.

Feeling low, drained and tired. The discomfort is not easing at all.  My skin even seems redder.  Hoping tomorrow I see improvement but I may even call the doctor.

Have just done another coating of oil.  My skin is drinking it up! Seems that the discomfort stems from where the tight scabs are.  I picked off a little from the side of my nose and it stung but now feels good (even though it is very pink and tender).  I'm too scared to do too much as the skin is very delicate. It doesn't run with blood, but does bring little dots to the surface.  Might be too soon.  Can you tell from the pics I'm feeling pretty low today?

Picato Day 4

Day 4 seems to be the worst.  I wake up with a severely swollen face this time.  My oldest son says I look like the little fat boy from Up.  I wash my face and smother it in coconut oil and frankincense oil. It feels sooooo good. By the afternoon it has settled down considerably. 

Picato Day 3

Day 3 my face looked much the same except for a bit of swelling.  We were all finding the experience amusing.

You can see from the picture of the right of me smiling that my face/eyes are swollen.  With my cheeks so swollen, when I smile, eyes squint.  My skin is a little weepy still.

 

I think that yesterday may have been the most difficult.  It seems that my skin seems to burn around 1 to 2 hours after application.  It was particularly painful yesterday but when I put my mind on something else, it's okay. I was cooking dinner last night and thought the steam and heat would be the end of me, but it actually subsided after concentrating on it.
I found sitting with the fan gently blowing on my face a great relief.

By night time the pain is completely gone.  Interestingly when we sleep our skin rejuvenates, apparently. My skin was constantly weeping.
This morning I applied my last dose of Picato.  It feels like I'm applying it to scales. I feel like I've got a facial mask on, if I smile hard, my skin craps (and weeps a little).
I'm not sure that glasses on my nose is ideal or if it is inhibiting the work, however, I am blind without them.

So, I am hopeful that from this point forward you will be see the regeneration of my new skin, cancer free.

Last night my face starting weeping.  It was not yellow pus but clear plasma like exretion.  It just kept running from skin.  At first a blister appeared on the side of my nose. This disappeared and  then it just weeped, and weeped.  I sprayed water on my face and had a cool fan blowing on my face.  My nose was throbbing.

I have woken up with very, very puffy swollen eyes.  My skins feels so raw and sensitive. Little blisters have appeared.

Reluctantly I have applied the next does of Picato.  I wonder what my face will do tonight when the reaction really kicks in.

I'm disappointed that the suspect carcinoma is not reacting at all. Just sitting there, unaffected, unblistered. Little shit!

I'm feeling very uncomfortable.  My face is burning up.  I'm doing some work as a distraction, which is working well but I feel pretty drained.
My cheeks are throbbing. Let's see how the night unfolds.

So it's been 2 years since my Mohs surgery.  You can see in the first picture what my nose looks like.  I do have makeup on but you can only just see the white area on my nose. Until now, I've been happy with the result.

Yet, I remember the plastic surgeon saying to me that if you roll the skin over your nose, you can see where the basal carcinoma is sitting.  Well I noticed a raised surface on my nose.  At first I thought it was scar tissue, but I became increasingly concerned. I had the doctor check it, but they weren't worried.  Then, rolling the skin on my nose, the outline became apparent, the was a circle, barely visible to the naked eye, in fact only I could see it.  I returned to the skin doctor and under special microscope glasses, she could see it.  So I'm using Picato treatment on my skin.  It costs around $150 and is used to remove solar keratoses.  Undocumented, it also has a good outcome for basal cell carsinoma.

So once again I am documenting the treatment.  First application (of 3) today.  My skin is red. It is stinging a little, much like bad sun burn.  It's going to get worse and blistering.

I've been told Picato is like a very mild form of chemotherapy and is like a chemical peel of the skin.

I suspect that I am using a chemical version of black salve.  My doctor has said that while black salve can be effective, it can also leave massive craters on your face and is a huge risk to take with something on the very tip of my nose.

So here we go. Stay tuned for the journey.

The Healing is Almost done

So it's been a while since I've posted some pics.  I know I should show the progression.  This is me when I've just got up.  No make up and oils on my skin.   You can clearly see the scar.  The irony is,  you can't see it much in photos, only in real life.  People do notice it if I draw their attention to it, otherwise I wouldn't say it's prominent.  The make up does well to disguise it.  I took some before and after pics recently of me getting ready in the morning.  so after I've applied the make up, you can decide for yourself the result.

The Home Stretch

 Okay so here is the scab (gross I know) before I went to the Doctor. I'm still keeping it covered all the time.  These pics are between replacing dressings. At the doctors surgery they removed the scab and left behind a red open wound but obviously shallow.  The placed on my nose a bizarre treatment called dermo...somthing.  (And gave me 2 supplies. See pics below of what it looks like) The dermo cover draws fluid underneath to help the skin heal over.  3 days later I was amazed to see a thin layer of skin had formed.

This is with the dermo thingy on my nose. It blends in so well with my skin colouring you can barely see it.  So much so, I decided to still cover it.  Because it looks like a really badly healed graft.  At least a tape over your nose clearly says "I've had surgery".   Tuesday I go back to the surgeon and THEN I can start scar treatment.

Good News Bad News

The Good News and the Bad News.

Well the good news is the grafting scar near my ear has healed incredibly well.  You can barely see it.  Some areas have a numb sensation but nothing bothersome.  My skin doesn't look crash hot in the pic because there is still the dressing tape glue.

Not so good news is that the graft didn't take.  It seems the graft skin and scab died before all the healing and tissue bonding happened underneath so a new graft needed to be done.  But the doctor is pleased with what he discovered under the scab.  Despite being a deep wound it is healing well.  I think the bleeding and perhaps the odd knock did not help the healing.
It's the cost that pains me the most.  First time was knee buckling, second time floored me and I had to call in some favours.

I washed my hair before the surgery today (oh the joy) as I know it's going to be a week or two before I can do it properly again.  Prior to that, I had my partner, David, wash my hair for me over the bathroom basin, so I didn't get the stitches wet.  I showed him the scene from "Out of Africa" so we could set the standards! Ha ha. We had a good laugh.  He complained I was not making the right "oh ah" noises that Meryl Streep made.  I complained his prose was not as good as Robert Redford.

Mohs Surgery - 1 Week After

It's been one week since I had the surgery. I didn't get my stitches out yesterday as I expected, but I now have less padding on my graft scar near my ear and the scab on my nose is looking very healthy.  It's too soon to put the oils on my nose but the doctor is very pleased with the healing.  I'm also going to try acupuncture to speed up the healing process and have started a very healthy dose of vitamin e.  hoping I will excrete the oil through my skin to help the scarring and healing on my nose. I didn't realise that the stitches on my nose are ones that dissolve  too!  So far, so good.

Post Mohs Surgery - Day 3 The nose is changing!

POST MOHS SURGERY - DAY 3
I just had to change the dressing again.  It seems the sebum from my nose makes the tape go sticky and yucky.  It itches like mad!  I knocked my nose 2 times in my sleep, I think in an attempt to scratch it in my sleep!
So after just 3 days, the graft is going black and scabby.  I'm hoping this is a good sign. I think the key is that the flesh is healing underneath!  Stitches out on Wednesday.  That's when the healing process really starts.  Back to work tomorrow.  Oh joy.

D-Day - The Mohs Surgery and stages.

So in the Plastic Surgeons clinic, I have the process begin.  It feels like the dentist!  I lay on the chair, a light is shone in my face and the chair is raised.  Ironically, I am terrified.  I've had 3 crowns and root canal.  THIS was feeling way more traumatic.  I can't relax myself in the usual manner of slowly breathing through my nose for obvious reasons!  I feel my blood pressure rising!!!!  I sit and wait in the waiting room.  I've read that the process can be harrowing.  As they look at the sample under the microscope and keep taking flesh away until no cancer is under the microscope.  My surgeon was very happy.  All gone, all good.  But I would definately be requiring a skin graft.  I had hoped to avoid this but onward and upward!

Post surgery

A few hours after general anesthetic I am still groggy but have the bandages from the skin graft.  I feel like I've done a few rounds with Ali.  They have taken a graft from in front of my ear.  Seems sensible.  I am mindful not to let the wound get wet but day 2 it seems to have been weeping a little. The nurse says this is normal. She's rung to check on me but says I can change the dressing if it gets wet. The dressing feels yucky and itchy and it's getting worse.  I think it's sweaty and yucky.  I follow instructions and change it.  Oh...my...god.

The graft is scary!  It looks like some alien piece of flesh stitched onto my face.  But I know that this "look" is normal for mohs skin grafts.
My main priority is to protect the wound and keep it dry.  I've bought some dry shampoo too.

The Mohs Surgery and Carcinoma - the story so far.

When faced with prospect of Mohs surgery, I really found others stories and pictures calming and reassuring.  So I thought I owed it to the "Internet Universe" to give back my story and to also make ME feel a little better/braver about the whole process.

This is me before the Mohs surgery.  Can you see the carncinoma?  Not really.  It was a clear mole like lump on my nose that would bother me and I would cover with make-up.  Occasionally, someone who knows me well enough to comment, might say "Hey, you've got a bump on your nose." (Yeah, thanks for that!)   But really you couldn't see it. 

 However in February 2014, I decided to have my annual skin cancer checks.  I mentioned it to the skin specialist.  He didn't seem to think it was troublesome but thought we should do a biopsy.  It was the new sort, that required a sample rather than a scraping.  When he localised the area, he thought that the skin of the lump puckered like normal skin.  He hesitated, did he really need to be taking a sample.  I said "I want you to be 100% sure, not just kinda sure". So away we went.  I was super confident.  I'm very sure it's not cancer.

I started to regret my actions, the wound looked horrible.  My colleagues at work thought I was quite amusing with my white nose.  So vain, I decided to cover the wound with a nice skin toned waterproof little band-aid.  Bad move!  It kept the wound moist and it infected. which I'm sure did not help with the scarring.  The stitching seemed tight and clumsy.  Yet, I discovered a little late the amazing medicinal value of therapeutic oils.  Applying melaluca (tea tree) and lavender to soothe the red inflamed skin and frankincence for the scarring.  Good stuff!

Stitches out and roughly 3 weeks later.

The results came back.  A base cell (and floating cell?) carcinoma!  So glad I went to the trouble of testing it!  Now after googling pictures of carcinomas I've seen many that looked like mine.  I think my doctor was used to seeing them on old farts!  He was concerned about the damage to my skin at such a young age (gee thanks, I guess youthful when others around you are old!)  He suggested I have mohs surgery to reduce the cosmetic impact.  

What a blow!  But taking this bull by the horns, I opted to research what this meant, what I was in for.  I kept applying the oils and the scar healed really well.  At least after the mohs I know what treatment to use!  I chose 1 of 2 surgeons available in Brisbane.  He confirmed for me that it was okay to continue using the oils through the healing process when I begin the mohs process.

So the lesion heals.  Really, you can't see anything on my nose, right?  But the cancer is there and left untreated it spreads, returns and eats away at the skin.  So I am following the advice of the experts.  So, I'm told that the process can sometimes involve just a little flap of skin pulled over the region.  It might be done in the day surgery and if needed, reconstruction done at the hospital.  Potentially skin grafts and down the track laser surgery to remove uneven blemishes or lifting the area to reduce indentations. I don't know what is the most distressing, this or the price tag.  Over $3000 (but actually ended up being more like $4000 with hospital bed fees!) See next post for the surgery!