Not for the Faint of Heart - Seriously

I was talking to my bestie a couple days ago about some of the funny stares and looks I got when we were at Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America last Wednesday.  I was confused at first by all the looks.  I thought it was because I was in a wheelchair.  I was explicitly told to "take it easy" for the next two weeks by Dr. Suwan - hence the wheelchair.  Aaaaannnnnd the fact that it hurt something bad to be walking.  So, naturally, the majority of us being curious by nature, will look and wonder why said person was in a wheelchair.  Then I saw one person staring his big googly eyes at my legs.  I was almost flattered until because of his big googly eyes, he almost ran into another person who was also staring with her big googly eyes at my legs as well.  Then the light bulb went off.  My new and awesome looking outfit that day consisted of a dressy t-shirt that looked fabulous w/ my new gray jersey knee length skirt.  For reals - finding clothes to wear that are comfortable w/ a JP drain stitched in my thigh is not easy.  Not to mention the fact that I had major surgery involving removing a bunch of important lymph nodes from my groin area which makes my thigh nice and swollen which in turn makes wearing jeans and pants and shorts WEIRD.

Sorry.  Tangent.  I did look really good that day though.

Okay - back to the light bulb going off.  I do need to backtrack a little here and explain my first surgery with the melanoma cootie.  When I asked Dr. Ideker to remove the mole from my leg (left shin to be more precise), she did remove the mole.  Then she gave it to the lab peeps and they biopsied it and that's when we found out it was not a mole but a tumor (um, ewww) and that tumor was melanoma.  Scary, aggressive skin cancer cootie.  That's when all the "fun" started.  Within 24 hrs I had appointments set up with Dr. Suwan, general and vascular surgeon extraordinaire, and with Dr. McCormack, oncologist who is the same age as me, maybe even younger but totally awesome.  Both Drs explained to me because of the depth of the tumor, which was 2.01 mm, the standard procedure, based on the size, was to remove all tissue down to my muscle 2 cm around the tumor.  That means a 4 cm circle of skin would be missing from my leg and would need to be grafted by my skin from my upper left thigh.  

That being said, surgery left its mark.  Clearly.  Very clearly.  I am almost used to it - this is the reason I was confused by the looks of people and kids at the MOA until my figurative, flashing light bulb went off.  I was wearing an awesome, comfortable knee length jersey skirt which left my leg that no longer needs a bandage around it out there for people to see and stare.  I guess I didn't think about it because I was wearing a compression sock (to keep the swelling in my thigh in my thigh - the compression sock stops the swelling from going down to my calf).  But, the compression sock is tight - really tight.  So tight my strong and studly husband puts it on me everyday (sigh - I love that man).  Because it is tight, it really molds into my leg - thus showing my crater size hole on my shin.  So, people are curious b/c a young and awesome looking girl in an awesome looking outfit is in a wheelchair.  I could almost hear them thinking "Oh wait - she must be in the wheelchair because of that... what is that?  A crater on her leg?  What?  Weird. Wait, I must look again and make sure she doesn't know that I'm looking again.  Because looking at an awesome looking, strange woman's leg is just maybe a little creepy...yada yada yada" 

Back to the bestie conversation.  We talked about it and I really did laugh about the people's reactions.  Heck - I stare at the crater myself because it is pretty bizarre looking.  That was when she, the bestie, told me that was what I should blog about next WITH PICTURES.  

So, as the title of the post indicates - this is not for the faint of heart.  My oldest daughter, T, still has a hard time looking at it.  When my third born looks at it, he exclaims, "It looks like a zombie head!" and then runs away a little scared.  E thinks its the coolest thing in the world and thinks it looks more like a zombie bite - not a zombie head.  And my youngest calls it "mommy owie."  Jeremy, when Dr. Suwan took the bandage off my leg to remove the staples (yup, I had staples. They stapled my skin graft over my crater.  15 to be exact.  I counted them after he removed them.  I really thought there were at least 30 b/c removing staples was not a pleasant experience at all) was a little green and a little in awe.  See, the first picture we took of it, we could literally see my muscle.  MY MUSCLE. No joke.  I will not be putting that picture on here.  That is a special request picture.  That is a "will give you nightmares" picture.  

You have all been warned.  Here are the pictures of my adventure into cancer cootie land...

Here's the before pic - see that red dot there?  That's where Dr. Ideker removed my tumor.  

 The after.  At least it's a nice circle of some sort.

  

Side view - this is what bothers me - how deep it went.  This is so much better from the first time I saw it but still.

My upper left thigh - this is where they removed the skin graft from.  

My awesome compression sock and what people saw at the MOA.  Poor guys!

I have one more picture.  For those of you wondering what the heck a Jackson Pratt (JP) drain is, here it is in all its glory except for the stitches.  The drain is stitched in my leg but again - it kind of creeps me out so I don't want to creep any of you out.  Use your imagination...

No - that is not pee!  It is lymphatic fluid.  Although my good friend Trish, who is about to pop with her third, exclaimed after seeing JP, "I want one of those!!!"  I hated to crush her hopes but told her it was not what she thought it was.  

So, that's that.  I am not responsible for any nightmares or weird and inappropriate dinner conversations from viewing these photos.  You were all warned...