Let Me Tell You About My Operation

I have a scar on my chin now, a nice thin line about an inch and a half long from just under my lip curving down to the right. Nice may be the wrong word, because under the skin in a wider circle something very hard insists itself upon my awareness. I try not to touch, but I touch often, just to see if it's still there and still hard. It is, both.

The professionals--the one who made the scar by cutting and the one I go to church with who might have made a less noticeable scar but who does not take medicare--tell me no worries. It will fade, hardness go away, etc., etc. Okay. I hope so.

It's basal cell carcinoma, skin cancer. Or, as someone close to me might say, cancer elbow of the chin. Pressure on the site is not to be desired--it hurts. Funny, too, because the incision is still kind of numb. A strange kind of numb that hurts under pressure. What are those nerves in there thinking?

Basal cell carcinoma. It's not the first. I hope it's the last. Does my attitude have anything to do with this whole phenomenon? I hope not, because I don't expect it will be the last. I just want it to be. At least it's not melanoma.

This one--he calls it a tumor--was bigger and deeper than the last ones, bigger and deeper than the dr who calls me Sweetie expected. I take no comfort in that. Size is not what I hope for. Cuts and many stitches, not what I hope for. Just happen to be what I got this time.

And, this time, when he said, "Sorry, kid [or Bud or Sweetie or whatever he was calling me at that moment], for messing up your face," I said, "Yeah, I've heard that before." That made him laugh, laugh hard. I can't figure why because he never laughs at what I say, like he doesn't hear me or something.

Maybe it was the first wise crack he actually understood and knew it was safe to laugh at. After all, I am the patient and must be handled carefully, even when cutting and, apparently, when cracking wise.

I say all this because I had begun to think he has only a one-way sense of humor. You know, what he says you laugh at; what you say he doesn't laugh at. And I asked him if he had a sense of humor, and he said, "Yes, of course." And I said, "Oh sure, you laugh at what you say, but you don't laugh at what I say." And he said, "I never know how to take what you say." Which was better than a laugh any day.