Alas, poor Moley, I knew him Horatio.
I had a dodgy-looking mole removed from my upper left arm this morning. Luckily my doctor is also a minor ops surgeon so there was no need to go to hospital – the doctors' surgery is all shiny and new and purpose built and comes with a variety of treatment rooms, one of which I frequented this morning.
It's been a long time since anyone's come near me with a scalpel, but my doctor was very good indeed – the worst part was having the local anaesthetic, but even that wasn't anywhere near the level of the kind of thumping migraine pain that afflicted me on Christmas Day. Once the site's anaesthetised, there's just that strange tugging as he cuts the mole out and then carefully sews up the resulting hole.
We chatted throughout the whole procedure, and all in all it was a hassle-free and non-stressing experience. There was even laughter. It's nice to be be able to say it, but the level of care was extremely high, and my level of faith in my doctor even higher. When the NHS gets such a pounding every day in the press about this or that misadventure, it's stuff like this that reminds you that the media just love their scare stories and that the majority of people working in the NHS, like my doctor, are doing their best and their best is, in fact, very good indeed.
The offending mole will be sent off for analysis, and whilst we both expect it to come back as entirely normal, it's better to be safe than sorry. Being fair, and there being melanoma in the family, any abnormal-looking mole is best removed, just in case.
Kev took pics of the wee beastie (in situ), which I'll post here when they are on Flickr. Meantime, I'm left with a slightly achy arm that I'm going to have to keep dry for a few days, and three stitches that I am hoping Mr Reynolds will be able to remove for me in due course.
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