Well its now 11 days since the surgery and the healing process has gone really well.  They took the first set of stitches out on Monday, and the second set Wednesday.  I’d had a few sneak looks at the damage during that time, but Friday was my first day without any dressings. The team at the hospital have done an amazing job and while the upper lips feels all odd and still number its looking really good.

All you can really see is a red line below my right nostril to my lip and now that the dissolving stitches are doing there thing and dissolving thing are all moving back into the right place.  Visually its looking great and you would never know that I’ve actually had quite an extensive reconstruction done.

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Today I went back to the hospital as not happy that I’ll be undergoing some major surgery and we don’t yet have a name for the thing.  The team there was really helpful and understanding and while we got alot of stuff sorted out more bad news came forth

The reason they want to move so quickly with the surgery is that it is malignant and aggressive and now thats its been tampered with by the first surgery its highly likely to spread.  As the next available slot is in a months time there is a very strong recommendation to move quickly.

Also while not fully identified, it has been confirmed what it is not and the treatment for the remainder is all the same.  Excise to clear margin.  So we are back to that.

The pathology also went off to the National Cancer Centre across the road which was fortunately one of the places I was recommended to goto for a 2nd Opinion.  End results all come back to the same thing.

So see you soon.

Wish it was a good results envelope, but unfortunately the results on the pathology from my lump were not good.  There is clear signs of malignancy and now more surgery is required. Thats was last Wednesday and its been abit of a roller coaster ride since then.

Went through a number of tests that day after getting the bad news, blood tests, ecg, contrast CT and chest xray.

Friday was back again for consult with doctors again to cover exactly what has to be done, consult with anesthesiologist, and MRI.  The outcome of all that is that alot of my upper lip has to be cut out to get a clear margin around the cancer and then they will do re-constructive surgery to get it all back to normal.  Should heal to minimal scaring in 6 months.

They have ruled out Melanoma and Basel Cell Carcinoma which is some good news, but thats about as far as the good news went.

Hand great dinner with friends that night which helped alot.

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