I do not consider myself particularly shy about being naked. I have never done housework naked, mowed naked and definitely never fried chicken naked. Some therapists believe that you should stand in front of a mirror naked and just look at yourself, loving that naked person. That's creepy. Confessions made, I don’t turn out the lights when I am naked and getting ready for the day. I can deal with being naked. I don't spend much time in front of mirrors naked, even less time now than any decade prior but more than any future decade. However, I had an unreachable itch in the middle of my shoulder blades. I looked in a mirror in our bathroom by turning my neck in such a way that spells "Corvette" to chiropractors as they consider all of my future potential visits. Sure enough, there was a spot that did not look right. My dad is in his 70's and now has his dermatologist on retainer for all of the melanomas the doctor has cut off. Almost all of them are fine, but as a precaution, they remove them. I figured same for me. As a business person, sitting in a dermatologist's waiting room, I am trying to figure out where they make the money. Is it the acne kids? Maybe some other skin conditions that need treatment. For some morbid reason I come up with a phrase that I wish I could get out of my head; "Money means the blade." How cold. How unfair to my dermatologist who has been great for the years that my family has gone to him. I bowed my head with shame and guilt. When we looked at the invoice, however, I knew that I was more right than wrong, money means the blade. It was my annual check-up anyway, so I went in, knowing that I would stand naked in front of him and his nurse as they mapped my body's various freckles, growths and marks. I am glad this was an annual procedure to be sure. It still started with the same uncomfortable proctologist office sound of the snapping on of latex gloves that always makes me twitch, but then it was just mapping. As the doctor, (dermatologists are doctors, this is important later), recited what sounded like the ingredients of Cheerios mixed with Algebra II for the nurse to write down, I tuned out. The doctor stood up and said, "Ok, all done. Are there any issues or growths, problems or things that you have noticed?" I told him there were and I pointed as best I could to the spot where I thought there was one. He looked at it and said, "This might be something. 99% of the time these aren't anything, but let's have it checked by the lab to see. I'm going to need to remove a sample of that tissue." I did not know that "a sample of that tissue" meant novocaine, scalpel, and pain medicine for 12 hours. I did not think much of it for a week or so until I received a call from the doctor's office. The nurse said something soft and reassuring like; "Your tissue came back with cancerous melanoma, this needs to be dealt with immediately or you are going to die." With time and reflection, it is more likely that something else was said, however, for the sake of time, let's say that is what I heard. My wife Jen came with me to the appointment for the surgery. They perform this kind of surgery in the office. Seems Ok, they are cutting a part of your skin out and then sewing what skin is left back together. On the television shows, someone can do that with a shoe lace, fishing tackle and some whiskey. At least the office will be sterile. I should mention that as we were driving into the parking lot, there was a great deal of wind and rain. The clouds in the distance had a green color to them. The weather report on our phones sent us an alert every few minutes about counties nearby, but we thought, "I'm sure that we will go to the basement if there is a real problem." We went in and up to the mostly glass, in all directions, waiting rooms. My dermatologist shares a wing of a medical facility with an opthamologist who specializes in cataracts. "Money means… " This must have been a heavily scheduled day because almost every seat in the waiting room was taken by someone a few decades older than me with eye protection or eye bandages and a care-giver. Outside, the rain was getting stronger, the wind was making the windows vibrate a little bit. The televisions in the waiting room, that only the care-givers, Jen and I could see, were showing one of those storm reporters making large circles around the most intense part of the storm over the city. From my angle, the actual epicenter of the circles was the building we were in. That annoying alarm sound came on the television, same sound as the "Testing the Network System" sound. Tornado warnings. Nurses came out of all of the doors and escorted the patients quickly to the elevators. They would be staying in the basement through the storm. So would the staff. They were going to wait until it was all clear. That's when we heard the voice, "Mr. Searcy, the doctor will see you now." Huh? Why was everyone with a safety concern or for that matter, an IQ over the level of a houseplant, going to the basement and we were staying here? Like drones, me in the lead, we followed the nurse into the operating room. I would call it an operating room, but it was about the same as an exam room. I took off my shirt and lay on my stomach propped up. This gave me a great view out the window into the weather rampage going on out there. I asked simple questions, using small words so as to not only be clear, but also not to aggravate the man with the scalpel less than a half-inch from my exposed back. I asked questions like; 1. Are you worried about the storm? 2. Why is everyone else downstairs? 3. Why are the nurse's hands shaking? 4. Will flickering lights affect the procedure? Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the doctor and I were speaking two different languages. His statements were; • This goes deeper than I thought • We want to make certain that we get it all • You look like that hurts. We are going deeper so it probably does. We'll give you some more local painkiller • We are going to be safe so we will take as much surrounding tissue as necessary • There are two layers of skin that need to be stitched so this will take a minute
This would be a normal medical conversation during a dermatology procedure I think if it were not accentuated by storm warnings on the phone, alarms on the floor and what looked like an entire parking lot of trees were going to blow over on all of the cars just before the building did. As our final instructions were given and the dressings applied, I heard people coming back on the floor. The doctor calmly asked who was next. When told, he said, "Good, I need to get out of here by 5:00 tonight." Lots of people get these kinds of procedures done every day. I have a cool scar on my back. I love my dermatologist and will use him again and again. I just do not remember having a surgery in the middle of a tornado. It comes back to the key lesson about the value of time in that profession; "Money means the blade." Post Script - The spot that had the cancer in it that was removed was not the spot I had noticed or told the dermatologist about. My spot was fine, he found a different spot that was the melanoma. He would not have found it without my question about the first spot.