Under the knife

Palace of Fine Arts 

 

Just like that, I was back in SF. 

 

Left over on the original site 

from the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition

 

 

It may be the #1 wedding photo location in SF

rent-a-swans  ;~)

 

 

Looking good at 22! 

 

 

 It was a spot the size of a pencil eraser---not my death mask!

 

The reason I came home...Medicare kicked in. I knew I would need Mohs surgery. It can be vey expensive so I waited. For the Mohs's uninitiated, they cut, check the margins to see if they got it all, and then close you up. This took three tries over the course of almost seven hours. Yes, you are awake for all of it occasionally yelping when the pain medicine wears off in he middle. 



Finally the good news comes and they tell you they got it all. Then the fun begins trying to figure out where to get the skin to lose it all up. The stitches above show where they went looking.

 A week later.

 



Then there was that small spot on my nose that turned into this. Another three peat constantly taking more each time to get clean margins.

 



This one kicked my ass while it was happening. You can see it in my eyes. It was if my face/psyche could not take this much in ten days. The picture above was the half way point. To get the skin to close, they cut into my cheek and pulled over a "flap". You don't want to see that photo but if you insist it follows!



The next day....





The flap later failed and had to be removed causing a very slow healing process where the wound had to fill itself. I must have killed a lot of people in a past life for this karma. I cannot feel anything around my eye. The nerves have been temporarily damaged. Supposedly they will heal.

My daily walk



 

At the corner of Broadway and Fillmore

 

Of course we only find the tile we like here in SF. I take pictures to show vendors what I'm looking for. If I could even find it on St Thomas it would start at $25/sf making it economically not feasible.

 

Other than ordering, receiving, and transshipping to St John the missing kitchen cabinet I did nothing except cry the blues about my painful face. Would I give up the life that gave me the skin cancer? No way. Had you been there you would say the same.


 



Mount Shasta on the return  to STJ via Seattle.

 

 The Bahamas from 35,000 feet.....

 

 

Back to the shack!