All's Well That Ends Well

I had my Mohs surgery today. For those who didn't see my prior post, Mohs is what they do for skin cancer in visible areas like face or ears. They shave off as little as possible and send it back to a lab tech to analyze while the patient waits. The sample has to be frozen, and usually there are several patients going through the process, so it can take as long as 90 minutes for the result to come back. If cancer was found, the surgeon takes off another small layer and you go through the process again.

I went through three rounds of removals (I guess you could say four if you include the initial biopsy that my dermatologist took). It was quite a refined process. After the second sample, the surgeon said the lab just found cells in the top of that sample so he did the last removal only from the top. That one was negative for cancer cells. The final step was being called back into the room to decide reconstruction strategy. In my case, I was quite lucky because 1) he didn't have to remove any of my ear cartilage and 2) there was still enough loose skin on the edges of my wound for him to pull the edges up and over and stitch them together.

I'll have "wound care" for about a week - cleaning the stitched area, applying vaseline and re-bandaging it. After that the stitches should dissolve and it'll be OK to go without a bandage. I'll have kind of a puckered, ropy scar which will supposedly fade over time. The surgeon said it can help to massage the scar with Vitamin E oil or use a scar reduction product.

So, whew.

Picture just for interest/WTF:

Click to View Show Anyway

My social media feeds have been full of Bridgerton, Bridgerton, Bridgerton. The new season currently being aired was released in two parts and apparently netflix used that as an excuse for a whole second "premiere" party. The cast members' premiere outfits are almost as outrageous as the costumes in the series. Case in point, this very weird ski-jump nipple creation worn by the woman who plays Viscountess Kate. I was looking forward to savage commentary on her dress, but most of the die-hard fans were more obsessed with complaining about how the original plots and characters from the books have been changed.

I subscribe to a daily newsletter called Bookbub that alerts me to kindle books on sale, and a few months back one of the Bridgerton novels was on sale for $1.99 so I figured what the heck. I started it this week - it seemed apropos since I'm watching the TV series right now, and I also needed a "palate cleanser" after reading The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. THAT was a fantastic book. I recommend it. But it was a bit emotionally heavy in that it revisited the pandemic and the George Floyd protests, and it's set in Minneapolis, so it was kind of like re-living 2020, ya know?

Anyway - the Bridgerton book is not bad for a romance novel. It's entertainingly written. I did peek at the reader reviews on Goodreads and there were complaints about borderline behavior from the male lead (grabbing his lover in anger). So I'm guessing in the end I won't be recommending it.