The Good The Bad and The Ugly

My first granddaughter, Amber, and mother to our three great grandchildren had her stitches removed Monday that were put in when the worrisome tumor was removed from the back of her head. When the doctor went in, he thought he was removing a pilar cyst and that was good news for everybody but when he removed it, he knew it was something else and sent it off to be biopsied.

Yesterday we found out it was a neurofibroma, a benign nerve sheath tumor in the peripheral nervous system. The key word for us here is benign. Thank you, God.

That's the good.

I had my follow up appointment with my plastic surgeon last week. He feels sure there are at least precancerous cells left. He explained that if he removed a cancerous cyst from my back, he would cut fairly generously taking a little more than he needed to just to be sure to get it all. This is made possible by the fact that there's plenty of stretchy skin there making it easy to close the wound. However, when he's removing a cyst from the tip of a nose, he needs to remove as little as possible because there's no extra skin to stretch in order to close the wound.

So....in January we'll do another round of chemo cream. And possibly another surgery.

That's the bad.

Right now I'm continuing with the 'Scar Away Silicone Pads and massage to try to minimize the scarring. Unfortunately my nose is still somewhat lumpy and bumpy. And the chemo cream will make it lump, bumpy, and fire red.

That's the ugly.

But again. It could be worse. I'm going into the holidays with a feeling of relief. The two special prayers I've prayed lately are that Amber's tumor would be benign and that Dave would get home safely from Afghanistan. And a couple of days ago, Dave wrote that he could be home as early as January 3rd instead of February 6th as we originally thought which could be very conducive to an answer to my second special prayer.

So that's more good.

Last Sunday I started the dreaded cold symptoms that I knew were coming when Mr. Right got sick. But I started taking Zicam and so far I really believe it's helped. So that's more bad.... but it could be worse.

And I don't have more ugly except for the weight I keep gaining.

There! Now I'm updated. And the good news is that there's a lot more good than bad or ugly.