(Update at bottom of entry)

== Original Entry: 5/24/09 ==

The answer is...
Me!
Surprise!

Sorry for not drawing or saying anything for a long, long time, and some of you have left comments asking if I have died. Sadly, no. You will have to bear with me a little longer.

Anyhow, as for the reason behind my crutches, it is because I have recently had foot surgery! I will be enjoying this Memorial Day weekend with my right foot wrapped in gauze and being unable to put weight on it (because the podiatrist says the stitches cannot handle that kind of stress and it will cause terrible scarring). My greatest joy is that I get to wear this massive boot that looks kind of cool. My greatest sadness will be my inability to use my hands while moving. Doors shall require tricky timing.

And as for the reason behind my surgery, it is because I have a mole on the bottom of my foot that has been looking kind of funky and changing size & color over the past year (comparisons here: [link] - please excuse the difference in lighting, and don't ask why I had a picture from a year ago). Concerned that it could be melanoma, I made use of my health insurance and had an excisional biopsy. So now my foot is useless for about 3 weeks, as quoted by the podiatrist! I will see him again this Friday and probably learn the results of the analysis as well.

There are three outcomes I see here:
1) it's just a mole - good news, and now I will have a pretty foot unblemished by a weird mole. It will instead have a scar, which I can make up stories for. Podiatrist is hoping for this, so it means it is a possibility.
2) it is skin cancer - good news, because then we've caught it early and it was a good call. Take that, bodily mutation! I might have to go in for further treatment, but at least it'll be good to know we did something about it.
3) it is terminal skin cancer - good news, because then I know the time of my death and can spend the remaining days of my life in a meaningful way, unlike those many whose lives were ended tragically and suddenly. I am rather confident that this is not the case, though, since it sounds like the moles the doctor is used to dealing with are much worse in appearance and...behavior? One of the surgeons was even confused when he looked at my foot: "What? We're doing this? *points at mole* Not this? *points at toe callus*"



Oh, something cool that also happened that day was that they stuck an adhesive strip on my forehead that read my temperature, but forgot to remove it after the operation because I guess my hair was covering it. So I still have it! *_*

*is so cool*

== Update: 5/30/09 ==

Alright, so I went back for a followup appointment with my podiatrist on Friday and he redressed the bandages and checked to make sure the incision was not infected. He had not heard back from the pathology department yet, so that usually means it is benign. Hooray! So now I don't have to worry about it anymore and won't have to have my lymph nodes examined.

Also, after a whole week I finally removed that temperature strip and took a shower and changed my clothes.

Feels pretty good, I tell ya.

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