faint

before i got married, i went started going to a dermatologist, a very dewy-skinned dermatologist, because i was less than thrilled with my skin.

i didn't really dig her, for a few reasons , the first being she was odd and cold. after the first appointment, i walked out of her office with 5 prescriptions and i was confused about what went with what. or rather what went where, which was frustrating to say the least. and expensive.

anyway, at one of my appointments i asked her about what i thought was a pimple on the side of my nose. she said it was a mole and she wanted to do a biopsy on it, right then. i said okay, but i'd reschedule for that. and i kinda sorta forgot until recently. i was talking to my brother who was talking about a mole on his face that our mom had told him he should have checked and that reminded me of my little mole.

i went and saw my primary care doctor for a physical last week. i showed her my little nose mole. she listed the symptoms/things that are of concern when it comes to moles: two colors, itchy, etc. and she referred me to a dermatologist. she said she wanted me to have it looked at with in 3 months. of course, i started worrying about all sorts of awful, fatal scenarios, all of which i could've avoided had i only let the dewy skinned dermatologist take a little piece of my mole off two or so years ago.

i called the dermatologist she referred me to the very next day. they happened to have a cancellation both monday and tuesday of last week. i was all set to take the monday appointment, until i realized my legs weren't, ummmm, exactly shaved, so i opted for tuesday's appointment.

my new dermatologist's office is at 450 sutter street, downtown. it's a beautiful, old, deco building. the doors to the offices are glass and they make me think of private investigator's offices, like in old movies. the views are gorgeous.

so the doctor came in. he's around my age. super nice. he looked at my nose and told me it was fine. he looked at my scalp and my arms and my legs and by stomach and my butt and told me my moles were great. actually, not great. but GREAT! and FANTASTIC!

then he saw the thing on my arm. the thing on my arm is a cysty type thing that's been there for 4 years? maybe more. it's ugly. for a long time my dad would ask me if it was a mosquito bite. gabe likes to push on it and say "ding dong." or he tells me he's pushing my buttons.

i told him that every doctor who's seen it has told me it's something different. the first doctor, my old primary care doctor told me she could remove it but it looked deep so it would leave a bad scar and it probably wasn't worth it. then, i saw another doctor, who wanted to cut that shit out. she looked at it hungrily and suggested i come back to see her after my wedding. most recently i had another doctor tell me he was sure it was a scar.

the doctor said it was probably something that was normal and nothing to worry about but, since it was so deep and sort of pinched looking, he wanted to biopsy it.

in case you didn't know, i'm the biggest baby.

he was amazing. i didn't feel a thing -- not even the shot he gave me numb it. it hurt less than the flu shot i had last week. and he talked the whole time to distract me.

when he was done, he tells me that i need to come back in ten days so we can remove the stitches. the minute he said that, i started to fade. he looked at me and told me face had no color, and that i shouldn't move. he cracked the window and the nurse brought me some water and i was good to go.

the stitches are gross. they're poking out of my arm like whiskers. they were black for about three days and now they've turned blue. every time i take a shower i look at the stitches and gross out. i have to keep myself from thinking about them too much.

the doctor called on friday and said that everything was fine, it was nothing to worry about.

so now i'm worrying about getting the stitches out. does that hurt?