Thursday, July 19, 2007

moley

Yesterday, I was supposed to have a mole removed. I showed up (with P-chan and the boys in tow) for my appointment, and was told I didn't have an appointment. Excuse me? Yes I do. It was finally explained that the procedure was a walk-in type, and that no appointment was necessary, but the doctor that was going to do it, had broken his left hand over the weekend and wasn't in. I recently broke a bone, I know how horrible that is, so okay, I understand that, but I had to drive 45 minutes to get here, not to mention the price of gas right now ($3.09 is the cheapest), and I really don't feel like driving home with getting nothing done. So they asked me to have a seat, and they'd call their boss to find out what to do. Please keep in mind that this is a military hospital. so a few minutes later I was called back, not by a nurse, but by one of the hospital administrators, who apologized for the misunderstanding, yadda yadda yadda, and basically asked if I wanted to wait to see if they could work me in (by this time it's after 2:30pm, and the end of the workday is 4:30pm) -- but no promises; or if I could come back the next day, again as a walk-in. After much deliberation and speaking, they finally made an appointment for me, and actually put me in for 2 time slots, since they weren't sure how long it would take (this surprised me, but it was made clear to me later). Soooooooo...Instead of going home "empty-handed", we checked if Krillin's school checkup could be done (nope, "but you should have called an hour ago, we could have seen you!") so I made an appointment for next week. Then we made sure that all our records were transferred from our previous base (I thought this was already done, but it wasn't) and then we went to my OT clinic (same building) and they were able to see me right then, so that I wouldn't have to come back on Thursday. The good doctor says that my supination (turning my arm to the outside) is better, so now we need to work on strength. yay! I am so glad we didn't have to go with the wacky splint that sounded medieval in nature. And then we went home.
Today was the appointment for the mole. Everything went smoothly. Through the course of the doctor and nurse's talking, I learned that removing moles used to be done at dermatology, but they recently moved it to the general practice side. The "walk-in" procedure was actually 50 minutes total, but I think the doc did a GREAT job! I am concerned about the so-called disolving stitches (they haven't worked all that great for me in the past), but from what the nurse said, it's a beautiful job, so as long as I don't tear the skin apart, there will be very minimal scarring. They had very good bedside manners, and kept asking me if I was okay. At one point, I said, "This is the longest I've been away from my boys in a year! I'm great!" And heck, I've got moles all over the place, maybe I'll just have them all removed.
The whole point of it being removed, of course, is to make sure it's not a bad one. I doubt it is, it was just really bugging me because it was very near my bra strap and would hurt if touched. So, I have a follow-up next week to check the stitches, and they should have the lab results back by then.
Oh, and the boys ran and gave me hugs when I finally returned to the waiting room. Kenshin then told me "Mommy! You were broken! But they fixed you!"

Not much else to say. I'm tired and should be sleeping, so TTYL!

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