Why You Should Always Trust Your Gut
This is why you should always trust your gut and be your own advocate when it comes to your health care. What happened to us when we didn't + our basal cell carcinoma surgery pictures. Don't let it happen to you…
We've wanted to write this article about why you should always trust your gut for 2 years now but it was hard. Hard to go back to that time, how frightening it was, and the after pictures of our basal cell carcinoma surgery….but we are ready now. (originally published 10/18)
Trust Your Gut
If you're squeamish you've probably already clicked off of this post, but if you're okay with it we are glad you're still here with us.
Ever since we felt and saw the scab that wouldn't go away on the top of our head we felt like we needed to share our story. After going through the surgery we knew we had to share our journey with others so hopefully you wouldn't have to experience this for yourself.
It was the middle of 2014 and we felt a scaly bump, we figured it would go away…….
After 6 months and it didn't disappear we went to our dermatologist. We will start by saying am diligent about going to a skin doctor no matter where we've lived because there is a lot of skin cancer in our family history and we've had many moles removed myself because they've come back precancerous. We're all about prevention.
We was told by our dermatologist it was “dermatitis” and to put this generic liquid on it to go away. That worked for a few months and then no matter what we did the scabby spot didn't go away.
Ignored our gut that told us he was wrong.
- We thought to myself “he must be right”, “he's an expert, we're not”
- We ignored our instincts, our gut, that something was not right
- We didn't push for further tests, probably because we didn't want our gut to be right….but it was
6 months later it was still nagging at us that we needed the spot checked out so we went into our regular doctor and asked him, we got the same “diagnosis” that it must be dermatitis. My gut told us that wasn't right but we think we didn't want to admit that it was something more so we hoped our gut was wrong and went on our merry way for another 6 months……
Why you should always trust your gut
We waited for another year believing something we knew inside to be wrong, it's not often our gut leads us in the wrong direction.
We went back and questioned the first dermatologist again, repeating that something wasn't right.
Once again….now 2 years later….he repeated the same words “it must be dermatitis”. This time we trusted our gut and wouldn't leave until we had an actual diagnosis for what this spot was.
Laying down on the table ready for a punch biopsy to be done on the top of our head which we knew would leave an open wound that would take a while to heal we was ready to either prove myself or him right…we hoped he was right.
- Immediately after he punched the bit of skin off and lifted it up he said “oh……you're going to have to have the surgeon look at this”.
- My gut was right… it was probably what we had expected, but hoped for 2 years that we was wrong.
Mohs Surgery Pictures
3 long months of waiting for a surgery date (that summer was hell we tell you) came and we had NO idea how invasive or easy it would be to remove the basal cell carcinoma spot on the top of our head.
As they shaved a large portion of hair we knew it would be worse than we could have imagined, and it was. We had MOHS surgery which meant they would cut the spot out, bandage us up, send us into a waiting room with other skin cancer patients, wait for the pathology results, and hope they got it all…..they didn't.
Up into the chair we went again with more basal cell cancer Mohs surgery. Some of the anesthesia was wearing off she had to stick a needle into the large open wound at the top of our head again to numb us up to cut a larger area out…..and we started to ball……..
Like that ugly cry where you cannot stop because you're so scared or sad about something…..we was there…..we even frightened the doctor a little bit.
Here we are, 41 years old crying like a baby in a doctors office with an open golf size hole in the top of our head that went all the way down to our skull.
She wasn't sure if we was in pain or something else so we had to explain that our favorite aunt had skin cancer that they told her was removed and she was okay. A few years later she was horribly sick and found out that they hadn't gotten it all and it had spread…..within 6 months she died…..and she was in her mid 40's……like us.
We couldn't bear to have this happen to us too.
Needless to say after the next round of more skin being removed, and pathology looking at what was taken out, we was told that we was clear….then she stitched us up.
It took a good year for us to be completely healed, and a good 6 months of wearing headbands to cover the open wound that we had to pack with salve to keep it moist. It was in a tough spot but through it all we had to focus on the positive and what we had learned.
What we can share with others so what we went through maybe doesn't have to happen to you or your loved ones.
- Trust your gut when you feel something isn't right with your health.
- Don't procrastinate, as soon as you think something may be wrong get it looked at
- Visit an array of different doctors to get opinions
- Demand tests that may rule out what you suspect may be the problem (we should have done this much earlier on in the process, if we had we suspect our surgery and recovery wouldn't have been as bad)
Has this experience changed us….most definitely it has! We used to be glass half empty kinda' gal. We won't say that those days don't happen anymore but they're far less often than before.
Does it suck that we have a bald spot on the top of our head that will never have hair again? Yes, but the way we look at it is “it could have been worse and as long as we don't have to go through that again we are fine with it”.
Why am we sharing this photo? This was taken 2.5 months after our surgery and our head was far from healed. We considered not being in the family photos that year but thought we should do it….and we are glad we did.
We shared our thoughts later in this article about why you should get in your family photos….and stop the excuses. If we could do it after this whole ordeal and creatively hiding the bandage on the top of our head with a bobby pin you have NO reason not to.
We share our story with you because
- It's therapeutic for us to write/journal
- We feel it is our duty at this point to share what we went through and hope you are your own advocate when it comes to your own health, prevention is key
- You too may feel like “it won't happen to us”……and sometimes it does…….
- It's okay to be the mom under the hat too, beauty comes from within
Trust. Your. Gut. Period.