Monthly Archives: October 2005

Even though I know you don’t want to read this, I know you will. Like a lurid fascination, you wanna know why I have scalp problems. You wanna know why I have a tumor on the back of my neck. Fear not, My People, I will tell you and you will learn from the man, the greatest dermatologist ever. For he was an internist before he was a dermatologist, therefore he knows the human race from the inside out. And, he’s funny. I like funny.

We decided to do the inspection from the top and work down, which meant he started with my scalp. Praises be! Please look at my poor burning, yet oddly snowing, scalp. The scalp that I’m afraid to touch or shift a hair for fear stuff will come sliding down the hair ramp! Awww, his fingers felt sooo good. And sympathy for my pain. He gave me sympathy. I asked him if it was contagious. He replied, “As much as I like you, if it were contagious I would have put rubber gloves on before I touched it!” HA!

After inspecting it, noticing its inflamed and flaky state, he diagnosed it as contact dermatitis and told me not to use anymore OTC treatments, including pine tar shampoo. *sniffle* And after all that love my cat was giving me. Maybe I’ll just open the bottle up and let Tug sniff it. Heh. Anyway, he wants me to use baby shampoo and a foam called Olux. He said it will reduce the ignited match feeling that I’ve been having on my head. Oh, the joy! Joy to the World!

We moved down to the tumor on the back of my neck. After an appropriate amount of feeling it up, he said it’s a swollen lymph node. He emphasized that it was NOT a tumor. Although I kept calling it a tumor (and will continue to do so), he refused to buckle to my pressure. “It’s a tumor!” I yelled. “No, it’s a swollen lymph node!” He insisted. Gah! He also said it was NOT a cyst, too deep. He believes that it is swollen as a reaction to the scalp problem that I have and it should return to normal size once the scalp problem resolves.

Then we did the annual mole examination. Can someone please explain to me what the purpose of moles are? He spotted one on my boobage area that he didn’t like the way it looked, so he made arrangements to serve it up on a platter to the laboratory for testing. Along with three others of which I didn’t like the look. First step of the removal arrangements was to numb the mole areas.

They left me alone while the numbing took effect. It was a crazy 15 minutes. Me, in an enclosed room that was 50 degrees, wearing a hospital gown, that despite the freezing cold temperature was sticking to my body. Somehow, I had managed to wedge the thing in my butt and when he had tugged it to do the mole inspection, it had ripped. And my armpits were sweating like crazy, which had caused the gown to rip on my arms, too. I decided to throw the thing away, put my jeans back on and used the modesty “drape” as a shawl around my shoulders. Much better.

Then I eyeballed the display of products contained in a glass shelf. I suddenly had this insatiable desire to open the cabinet and sample them, all of them, one right after the other. Salve myself up with products that cost $50 a bottle. It had a mirrored back on it and I caught a glimpse of the insane gleam in my eye, frightened myself and returned to normal. Then, oh no, I felt the urge to pass gas. In an enclosed room and the doctor was gonna come back in at any moment, and no one to blame it on but me. Grunt, I can’t let that come out. Oh, thank goodness, it stayed in.

By that time, my eye was numb (one of the moles was on my cheek) and I couldn’t get it to focus quite right, those samples I had been looking at were slightly blurry. My eye, it felt cold and dry. I wanted to close it, but wanted to look outside. Dilemma. I’d already read all the stupid posters about lasering hair off and the anatomy of an irregular mole, over and over. My eye, what is wrong with my eye?

Finally, the door opened and the doctor came back in. I’ve never been so happy to see another person in my life. He laughed his big booming laugh at the sight of me in my jeans and draped shoulders and all was right with the world. The axis, it fixed itself right then. When I described my eye problem he told me the ocular nerve ran right there where they had numbed it, so it would go away soon. I’d figured that, but it was good to be reassured. In case you hadn’t noticed, I require lots of reassurance.

The moles were removed and I left on wobbly legs to go buy baby shampoo at Target. A little girl in line suspiciously looked at me as I checked out. I don’t blame her, I have two visible bandages on my face. I wanted to tell her that, someday little one, you, too will have to endure surgeries that leave you looking like a freak for a few days. Your precious little face won’t always be so perfect. Along with everything else that will be wrong with you, you can blame your parents for that, too.

Moles, they’re your parent’s fault.