The return of the tiny thigh lesion, part iii
Dr. Washington was a kindly older black gentleman with blonde hair, just like his receptionist, June. It wasn’t dyed that I could tell, just blonde.
I came into the waiting room, and June asked me to fill out their form. Blah-blah-blah. A minute or two later, the doctor called my name and off we went to a small examining room. I pulled up my demin shorts to reveal the darkish spot on my thigh, explaining to him how it appeared overnight in early September, bled for about a week, and then grew to its present size, which he measured at 5mm x 5mm. He asked me if I had been sunburned there, and I told him that I had been but I was usually very careful about using sunscreen and keeping covered, owing to my Northern European heritage (German, Irish, Scot – thus the red hair and freckles).
He said, “We should cut that off and send it to the lab.” To which I replied, “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” He pulled out a syringe from this big box of them sitting on the counter, and put on some latex gloves. He opened the packaging and removed the syringe, then put in some anesthetic, probably lidocaine, but I didn’t ask, and place a small injectiion into the adjacent skin.
That’s when he we chit-chatted about where I worked, the fact that I don’t have insurance, to which he sternly admonished me. “You really should get some insurance,” and suggested a couple of companies that I hadn’t considered. I told him that Kaiser rejected me for their generic plan because I am overweight. They do have another plan for us “high-risk” people, but it’s prohibitively expensive.
Finally, he took out a scapel and deftly sliced off the spot, placing it into a small jar of 10% formalin. Next, he fired up this electrical wand and cauterized the wound, and placed a band-aid over it. I could see before he cauterized the wound that there was still skin underneath, and he assured my vanity that it would hardly leave a mark behind.
I asked him what he thought it might be, telling him that I had seen pictures of basal cell carcinoma, and that this resembled that. Dr. Washington said that this wasn’t that, that is was probably just a mole, that moles do this all the time, but that the lab would know for sure. He also told me to call him back next Tuesday or Wednesday for the lab results. I assured him that I would do so, shook his hand, and went out to pay June.
Consultation $69.00
Biopsy $80.00
Relief that it’s probably not a cancer – Priceless. Well, I’ll know for sure next week.
