I started the year saying that the plan was for Jp and me to run one half-marathon per month. However, I acknowledged in my first race report that many things could hinder that goal. February showed just how quickly that could happen.

I’ve been going to the dermatologist annually for skin checks out of an abundance of caution. My sister and mom have both had some form of skin cancer, though thankfully, both were small. As the fair-skinned person that I am, getting checked seemed wise. A couple of years ago, I had a pre-cancerous spot that they were able to simply freeze off in the doctor’s office. This year, they found actual cancer.

We almost missed the diagnosis. I had this odd little spot on my upper lip below my nose. It seemed like a small skin tag. There was no discoloration, but it stuck up a bit. At some point, I scratched it, and it bled. From there, it seemed like every time it was almost healed, I would scratch it again. I mentioned this spot to my dermatologist at the end of my annual scan. She’d already said I was clear, but based on my description, she took another look. And then she biopsied it. The pathology report came back as squamous cell carcinoma.

I was scheduled to have the spot surgically removed on February 19th in what they call a Mohs procedure. I showed up at the outpatient surgery center on the scheduled day and was prepped by a nurse who had me identify the spot, take pictures, clean it, put a drape around it, etc. Since it was small and on my face, I was seated in a slightly reclining chair. I was given a local anesthetic that was almost identical to getting novocaine at the dentist. It was the same horrible initial pinch and burn, but easy after that. The nurse explained that the doctor would come in and remove a piece of the skin. He would cauterize to stop the bleeding, and then the skin would be looked at in their onsite lab to determine if they needed to go deeper or broader to remove all of the cancer cells. These steps would be repeated until they were confident that all of the cancer had been removed. How the wound would be closed would depend on how much they had to remove. Since my spot was so tiny, it was possible that we could get it all the first time.

The doctor came in, and it went exactly as they described. I was surprisingly calm throughout (I can get very anxious about such things). The worst part of it was honestly the smell of the cauterization. It smells a lot like burning hair. And it was right below my nose, perfectly positioned to get the maximum impact. The sample was sent to the lab, and we just had to hang out and wait for the result. The lab result indicated that we did not get it all the first time, so we did a second round and waited again. Fortunately, the second round took care of things. Now we just had to close it up. Below is a very glamorous view of me with the wound marked for closure.

To close the wound and have it heal with the smallest scar possible, they had to remove some additional skin (called revision) to pull it together in a way that made sense. The marker drawing around the wound above is what they cut it to before suturing. They gave me a bit of additional anesthetic, and then we did a bit more cutting, cauterizing, and, finally, suturing.

The post-surgical instructions were when my running plans suddenly changed. Somehow, I hadn’t even considered that there would be a recovery period in which my activity would be restricted. The nurse said that I was likely to have swelling and that I shouldn’t raise my heart rate for a few days. I asked her about it in more detail and she said I might be ok to run by the following weekend. I wanted that to be true since Jp and I were scheduled to run the Atlanta Half Marathon on February 25th.

Unfortunately, what we want and what life gives us are often different. My lip swelled horribly in the days that followed my surgery. I couldn’t drink without a straw. The swelling caused discomfort. The bandages didn’t want to stay on well, especially since it was against my lip. As the week went on, my hope went from running normally to running extra slow to walking to facing the truth that I was going to have to sit it out. I was sad about it. I didn’t want to get thrown off my plan for the year so early. My sense of responsibility and desire to heal the wound well won out.