It's Not Brain Surgery, But It's Kind of Close

If the guy standing over your numb face with a knife in his hand says to you, "This is costing me money," that's a good thing.

It means no deep cuts, no stitches, no lying there while the pathology lab analyzes the tissue to see if they got the whole tumor, no paying the pathology bill, and no black eye, which would have resulted because the surgery was over my left eye.

"These tumors are both pretty shallow," says Dr Burr. "We'll do a destruction." And although that doesn't sound good, it's better than cut, dig, and stitch. It amounts to scraping--I couldn't feel it, but I heard it--and freezing. And so yes I have holes over my eye, but they're really more like indentations.

"If I had to do the surgery," he said, "you'd end up without an eyebrow here." Dr Burr finished up, took my hand in his two hands, held it against his mid-section, and rubbed and patted and apologized--again--for messing up my face. And, yes, he called me kid.

He telephoned at 9 p.m. last night to inquire about my face. At the end of our chat he said, "You take care, kid. Have a good night. These things will heal, and we'll see you in January." I thanked him very much. For the phone call and for the whole thing. I'll live with the "kid" and the "sweetie." He's a nice man.

Now I apply a white emulsion to the ugly little places three times daily and put on fresh bandages.

There. You likely didn't want the details, but you got them.