Squamous Cell Carcinoma on the Ear
Well, that was interesting.
Sometime before Christmas I noticed a small lump on the top of my ear lobe. It looked and felt sort of like a pimple. You know, a bit red and a bit painful to the touch. I even squeezed it.
But, it didn’t go away. I tended to forget about it unless I happened to brush it for some reason. There, I would feel a little pain, like a bug bite, or something.
I didn’t think much more about it until I noticed it hurting some when I was trying to sleep. So, I looked at it in the mirror and found it had grown to the size of a small wart. In fact, that’s what it looked like.
I mentioned it to a doctor I knew at church, he looked at it and said it didn’t look serious, but should probably have a dermatologist look at it. A few weeks later, I took Sandra in to her doctor for some reason, and asked the doc to take a quick look. She said essentially the same thing, and gave me the name of a dermatologist close by. I phoned and made an appointment for the following week. When I saw him, a very nice guy, by the way, he also said it didn’t look serious but, in light of my history, he would remove it and have it biopsied.
The nurse called a few days later to say that it proved to be positive – squamous cell carcinoma. But, she said, it would be very easy to treat with an almost 100% success rate. We made an appointment for a month later for me to come in when there would be a mobile lab there to biopsy what the doc removed to make sure he got it all.
I was there bright and early the Monday morning about 3 weeks ago. 8:30, to be exact. I left at 1:30. He had removed almost all of it the first time, but there was a small piece left, so he removed that and some surrounding tissue, and gave it to the lab guy. I had to wait for 45 minutes for him to determine the results, which came back that there were many places with cancer around the edges of what was removed (and, therefore, left in my ear). Not only that, it was invasive, or the type that spreads.
The doc removed another semicircle. Another 45 minutes, and still some cancer, but not as much. The doc told me that his record was 7 times, but he felt I wouldn’t have to have it done that many times. Another slice came back with still some left. Now the hole was getting pretty big, and he decided that he would have to do a skin graft. While we waited for the results for this, the fourth next slice, he removed some flesh and skin from my neck behind the ear to use as a graft.
The nurse and he regaled me with an account of a time they had a problem with one guy’s graft. They said that on some people it is almost impossible to find a place from which to take a graft. This particular time, there was only one place to remove it, which they did. Now, a graft like mine looks pretty insignificant, just a piece of meat with some skin on it. Unfortunately, in that case, they had a medical student who also thought it wasn’t needed any more, and threw it out! Needless to say, he was escorted from the place never to return.
The last slice came back clear, so the doc proceeded to attach the graft. This whole time, the ear had been pumped full of anesthesia, so there was no pain. He stitched it in, and I had stitches in my neck, too. It got pretty sore that night, and it was painful to sleep on that ear for a couple of weeks.
A couple of days after the operation, I had to change the bandage. I was shocked! The graft didn’t fill the hole by a long shot. It didn’t reach up to the edge of the ear, so there were raw-looking edges. I figured that when it healed, I would have a big notch in my ear. I was thinking of ways I could explain it. Maybe I could tell people that I notched my ear every time I sunk the 8 ball on the break, or something . . ..
A week later, I went in and had the stitches removed. Since then, both wounds healed pretty fast. The pain in my neck and ear became rapidly less sore.
By now both wounds have healed and, wonder of wonders, the graft and the rest of my ear have grown together so that you can hardly see that there was any problem at all.
Another answer to prayer!
Hopefully, that will be the last incident of that sort. I will ensure to protect my ears from the sun better in future.
