As the surgeon cut out the cancer cells on my face, the words of Ash Wednesday came to mind: “Remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Samuel Johnson famously said that nothing concentrates the mind as much as the prospect of one’s hanging. The same can be said when you hear the word “cancer,” even when it’s early stage and confined to a small spot near the right ear. “Squamous cell carcinoma” doesn’t sound any more soothing. Whatever words are used, there’s something growing slowly on my face that could eventually kill me.
After the nurse called with the results of the biopsy, I did what everyone does these days when receiving bad medical news. I went to the Internet and was served up more than 2 million sites, complete with totally nauseating photos of skin cancer at its worst. Well, I comforted myself, at least I don’t look that bad!
I decided then and there not to worry, and to pray, and to call for an appointment with the dermatological surgeon. I took it as a sign from God that just as the doctor’s secretary was telling me that there were no new appointments until January, a patient on the other line was cancelling an appointment he had the next business day. Without blinking, I said I’d take it.
So there I was, in the waiting room, with my supportive wife at my side, sitting among people who had ridiculous looking bandages on their noses, ears, foreheads and jaws. It was October 26th, but Halloween was coming early, I thought, amused that I would soon be joining the "Mohs" club.
The Mohs procedure involves cutting out the cancer cells and some extra skin, placing a temporary bandage on the wound while the skin specimen is examined under a microscope, and calling the patient back if cancer cells are found in the surrounding tissue. You can be called back two, three or four times, as some of the patients were the day I was there. All this surgery is done on a regular examining table, under local anesthesia, which doesn’t do wonders for the stomachs of the squeamish – or the “squamous.”
On the table, the right side of my face was filled with so much anesthesia that I didn’t even feel the numbness, my head was turned slightly from the surgeon, with a drape over my eyes so I couldn’t see the scalpel. I felt a light pressure and asked if the surgery had begun. “I’m almost done,” said the surgeon, a pleasant woman with an Indian accent.
A few minutes later, I sat in the waiting room, a big white gauze bandage on the side of my head, feeling decidedly older. Age had caught up with me, I ruminated. It was my first surgery, my first time under the knife. When I walked to the bathroom, for some reason I was limping, as though something more than a half-inch of facial skin had been removed.
“How deep is it?” I asked my wife, lifting the gauzy dressing. I was expecting a joke – looks like they hit the brain – but she was a bit somber and said, “Not bad.” A polite way of saying, “yuck.”
Well, the good news was that they got all the cancer cells on the first swipe. The bad news was that I needed stitches to close the wound. Back to the table, this time sitting up as in a dentist’s chair. More anesthesia, more cutting. The surgeon actually had to make the incision longer in order to apply stitches, so she cut about the length of my ear, and began to sew, all the time chatting with an intern about doctors I didn't know.
I tried to offer my sufferings, small as they were, for the souls in Purgatory, or for my children’s health, or for my wife. I tried to think of the lance piercing the side of Jesus, and blood and water – the saving waters of Baptism and the healing balm of the Eucharist – flowing forth for mankind. But all I could think of were the words of Ash Wednesday, about flesh and dust and the shortness of this life, as I limped from the table.
