Dermatology Biopsy Result

I am a gutless wonder. It's true. Art will gladly verify that. I don't like needles poking into me. I don't like pain.

Therefore when I met the dermatologist and he told me he would need to do a biopsy because the spot on my chest was not the usual sort of thing, I had questions.

"Since it was more reddish and light brown, it should be OK, right? All the pictures I've seen show dark black or brown moles."

Nope. He showed me other pictures of reddish moles.

"Would the biopsy be done with a needle?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

I had a picture in my mind of a numbing lotion and a quick extraction from the area with a very thin needle.

Nope. He said they'd be injecting a numbing lotion and then he would be slicing off a section of the discolored area for pathology.

I then asked:  Would hurt later? How long will it hurt? What do I put on it? What do I cover it with? How long do I cover it? Can I take a shower with it? When do I find out if it's cancerous? If it's not, what should I do? If it's not cancerous, what is it? And so on and so forth.

He then marked my chest where he wanted the nurse to stick the needle with the numbing solution.

The nurse came in and told me it would sting and little and then burn, but then it would be nicely numb. She checked my cellphone number and said, "I KNOW that area code well! You are from Chicago. I am too!" Pretty amazing coincidence!

When I saw the razor like instrument that the doctor picked up after coming back into the room, I'm sure my eyebrows totally disappeared into my bangs.

The doctor was very gentle and I was truly fine. I couldn't feel a thing.

And then it was just a matter of waiting for the results.

POSTSCRIPT:

I got the phone call from pathology. It was a benign lesion.

Phew! I wonder how long it will take for the now even bigger redness to go away.