Dealing With Fear
Mary and I were at my dermatologist the day before yesterday when Mary showed the dermatologist a mole on her back that I had spotted. The mole had bothered me because it was irregularly shaped a bad sign in moles. Symmetrical moles are usually ok, but non-symmetric ones need to be investigated. The dermatologist took one look and told Mary it should be definitely removed and biopsied.
Mary, who does not trust doctors and who is deathly afraid of any medical procedure, surprised me by asking how soon the mole could be removed. “How about tomorrow?” the doctor asked, surprising both Mary and I.
All next morning Mary was on edge, waiting for her 1:30 surgery. Her fear was so strong that she even started having panic attacks. My attempts to reassure her calmed her down for all of 30 seconds.
The time finally came for us to go to the doctor’s office. We got lost on the way there because Guadalajara does not believe in traffic signs. At one point Mary asked a pedestrian what street we were on. The young woman tried to be helpful, but she had no idea what street she was walking on. Why should she when there are no signs?
When we got to the doctor’s office there was a wait of 30 minutes because the doctor was running late. The wait didn’t help Mary’s nerves any. Mary finally said she was going to leave and never come back if the doctor didn’t show up by at 2:00. I actually think Mary was counting the seconds when the door to the doctor’s office finally opened.
The doctor greeted us and tried to reassure Mary that it would be a simple procedure. She gently led Mary into examination room as I followed behind. She had Mary scoot up onto a table and lie on her side. The doctor placed a surgical cover over Mary and applied an antiseptic soaked gauze patch to the mole. Then she busied herself getting her instruments ready.
First the doctor assembled a pre-filled hypodermic needle out of Mary’s sight. Then she injected Mary at least a dozen times around the perimeter of the mole. Mary grabbed my hand pretty tightly until I pointed out that it really didn’t hurt all that much, did it? At that her whole body relaxed. I noticed that the doctor had pumped in so much anesthetic that the mole had been pushed up as if it was resting on a tiny hill.
As the anesthetic took hold, the doctor assembled a scalpel out of a razor blade and a metal handle. The specially shaped blade clicked onto the handle when she squeezed the two together with a forceps. Then as I watched (only in Mexico), the doctor started cutting into Mary’s flesh. She cut around the mole and under it. The small amount of blood was soaked up by sterile gauze patches. Watching the scalpel cut through living human flesh like you would cut through lunchmeat while making a sandwich was awesome.
Once the doctor had completed cutting around the mole, she clamped a forceps onto the mole so that she could lift it up while cutting further underneath it. Mary felt the forceps and starting tensing up again. I asked her if she could feel any tugging. She said she could. When I pointed out that all she was feeling was some gentle pulling, she relaxed again.
The doctor finally cut the mole completely free and put it into a small liquid filled plastic jar. The bloodless flesh attached to the mole turned white in the liquid. Fortunately the doctor didn’t have to cut any deeper because the mole turned out to be mostly superficial a good sign.
Next, the doctor got some threads out. Each one had a small metal hook attached to the thread. The doctor used a forceps to force the hooks into the edges of Mary’s wound. Once a thread was running through both sides of the wound, she wrapped one end the thread around the end of the forceps, grabbed the other end of the thread with her forceps, and pulled the end through the loops and voila a perfect knot. The doctor tried several knots in each thread. I noticed that the first knot was not pulled as tightly as the subsequent ones. I guessed that if the first knot is pulled too tightly, the skin could be torn.
After the stitching was done, the doctor put an antiseptic soaked gauze path on Mary’s wound while she washed up her instruments. Finally the doctor put fresh clean gauze on the wound and taped it up. Mary and I were free to go home. Later on Mary admitted that she had been overly fearful, but she also thanked me for being there.