Holey Moley!

I feel it’s only fair to give you an “EEEWWWWW Alert” and the “TMI Warning” before letting you read about this one. I don’t think it’s too gross, but my children certainly do! So, read on at your own risk. Also, it seems to have gotten rather long...you might want to just skip it!

I have about a zillion moles. I’ve always had them. (I think I was born with them so we’ll just blame my mother.) I’d never really thought about them much before Shaun came along. Shaun who tends to tease people unmercifully when he thinks he can get away with it—and often when he knows he can’t. In fact, my moles were the cause of our first big fight. I nearly ended it with him that day. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that the heavens opened up (think Monty Python here) and I saw a vision that foretold of the day that our future children would feed him Bertie Bott’s beans spiked candy.

Anyways, that’s just background and doesn’t really have anything to with anything. Moving on, I have this mole under my arm. It’s always been bigger than the rest of them. Over the years, I have learned to not shave it off in the shower and to just generally ignore it. Over the last few months I’ve noticed it growing. (eeewww) I mentioned it to Shaun and he offered to cut it off for me with his toenail clippers. (EEEWWW) Naturally, I had to ignore him as I often do. Yesterday morning, I told him that had been hurting me and was getting worse. He went into a mild panic and strongly suggested that I go see a doctor. I’d say he told me to go see the doctor, but, well, I have him trained better than that. So, I called and made an appointment.

The doctor took a quick look at it and quickly assured me that it was non-cancerous and that it was hurting because it was half strangulated. He also informed me that it was probably growing because my body was maturing. (Now wasn’t that a nice way of saying I’m getting old?) Then he asked if I’d like it removed. Almost before I could finish answering him, I found myself propelled down the hall into a room that was labeled “Minor Procedures”. It was a very white and very sterile looking room. I’m not sure if that was supposed to reassure my anxiousness or not. In the middle of it was an ominous looking platform with a huge glaring spotlight overhead. The nurse quickly had me situated on top of it with one of those lovely gowns draped over me toga style. Then she aimed the spotlight directly at me.

Within moments the doctor was back and instructing the nurse to go find a cauterizer. Then he placed a face shield over his head…something that a welder or maybe Darth Vader would wear. Quickly putting two and two together I simply had to ask him exactly how much blood he was expecting with this “procedure”. He never really answered my question but proceeded to tell me all about the different cysts he had dealt with that reminded him of Old Faithful. Huh.

Then we were ready to begin. As he was injecting the anesthesia I told him for the third time that my body eats that stuff up like candy. Seriously. He just gave a smug little smile and muttered something about how we would just have to work quickly. Then, without giving the drug time to start working, he got to work. My hapless mole was grasped in what looked like oversized tweezers. He pulled that poor hunk of my flesh out at least an inch then laid his scalpel against me.

“Let me know if you can feel this” he said.
“Ahhhhhh, I feel it!” I screeched in reply
“Hmmm, maybe you were right about the anesthesia” he mumbled, “I’ll just…” and with a sudden sharp pain my mole was sliced off and placed on the tray with a flourish. Before I could say a word he popped the top off of a long white cylinder. He swiftly placed it against me and I could hear the sizzling of my flesh and watched as tendrils of smoke curled up towards the light. He asked me if it hurt. I replied that it didn’t hurt, but was making me a bit nauseas. I think to take my mind off what had just been done, he showed me his little cauterizer and explained how it worked that that it was like a little solder iron. That perked me up! “Do you just toss that now?” I asked “Can I have it? Pretty please?” He looked at me rather oddly then told me sure, but not to let anyone know. I was so thrilled with my new little toy that I instantly forgave him the needless pain he had caused me.

Then I caught a glimpse of a small pink item on the tray. I couldn’t help it. “Is that ME?” I asked. (Remember about me being a dead cat?) So, I got another odd look, then got to see my mole (which turns out wasn’t really a mole, but a large skin tag) It looked like a cross between the eraser on the end of a pencil and a small glob of steak. He started examining it, prodding and turning it every which way causing another small bout of nausea in me. (I’m not that curious)

I’m glad I picked a slow day to go in. I don’t miss my mole at all. And I’m going to love my cauterizer.