Adventures in healthcare

I made an appointment a couple weeks ago to have a wart removed from my forehead.

Tangent: When I told Tattoo Queen this story, she said that she never noticed a wart on my face before. That's one of the reasons I love her: True friends are always surprised by your warts- literal and figurative.

My appointment was the day after school ended, and in the grand tradition that I forget about, my body decided to celebrate by staging a coup against me. I woke up with a wretched headache, dizziness, and the imperative to watch anything I put in my stomach on rewind.

But I didn't want to cancel the appointment because sometimes I get a notion in my head and the morning's notion was that if I didn't go, I would have to pay the cancellation fee (why that $20 seemed huge is beyond me) and I would probably never get the wart removed.

Shaky and woozy, I went to the doctor's. She took one look at my wart and said, "That's not a wart. That might be a low-grade skin cancer."

WHHHAATTT?

I tell you, it's just like a wart to be an innocuous lump of flesh only to turn and be an effing nugget of cancer.

I'd like to think that I was cool with the news, but the way she talked to me made me wonder if I didn't have freaked-out written all over my face. She said she'd need to do a biopsy and started cautioning me on the injection ("This is going to sting. It might hurt"). I went into fear mode because that is my go-to reaction during any doctor visit, even the ones that don't feature turncoat warts.*

The needle didn't hurt,** and the area was numbed up fine. She did the biopsy and told me the results would be ready in three weeks.

I made two faux pas: 1. When the doctor asked me if that was my natural haircolor, I laughed and said it came from a box. She frowned because hair color can determine fairness of skin and skin was very serious business; 2. She asked me how long I had my wart and I told her two years, which was completely wrong because tracing our relationship back revealed that my wart had been a companion for at least seven years.

The nurse was very nice, God bless her. She did make me worry when she started telling me how to care for the wound (Again, maybe I thought I was composed, but my face screamed high anxiety), and I really started to wonder about how big a chunk the doctor took. I was fully expecting to see cranium when I removed my band-aid.*** The only reason I worked up the nerve to take it off was that I didn't want a crusty band-aid circle on my head along with the gaping wound.

The divot was tiny.

Three weeks and the test results will be in. The doctor said we could decide on a treatment (?) then; I really wouldn't care if she took a razor and scraped the little mother off. I want this shit over with.

 




*Betrayal would best describe my feelings. I had a certain fondness for that little piece of skin even though I wanted to get it removed.

**I'm a victim of needle amnesia. When faced with a shot, I succumb to anxiety and forget about my tattoos and piercings. This reaction is ridiculous, and I need to work on it.

***Why do the doctors give those telltale circular band-aids? If I had a regular rectangle band-aid, I could've pretended that I was in a bar fight. I wanted to ask if she had any cartoon band-aids, but decided not to risk it. Doctor's visits are very serious business.