Jenifer’s Shelter Island Journal: After surgery

Let me, up front, make my readers a solemn promise: After this post-op, “After” column, I will discontinue detailing any further surgeries of any kind — mine (heaven forbid), or anyone else’s for the foreseeable future.

So, the face of Mt. Jenifer had been scaled, sliced and is now presently stitched, the uninvited guest, Melanoma, having been summarily and permanently evicted, at least this time.

A little over a week ago, my doctor having excised — and then some — what for 20 years had always  seemed an unoffending brown spot on my cheekbone, they sent me home on the Hampton Jitney wearing a huge bandage a la The Phantom of the Opera. The next week, in the IGA, some people looked anywhere but at me. Others said, “What happened to you?” I was very tempted to say, “Windshield,” but I told them.

This past Monday and Tuesday, waiting … waiting … for the results of the lab tests, I can’t say I was my old smart-mouthed self. However, when my doctor finally called, he sounded pretty cavalier: ”Oh, sure, it’s fine. The margins are all clear.” 

“Thank God!” I gasped. 

He said, “Why doesn’t anyone thank me first?” 

Funny guy.

Thursday found me on the westbound Jitney, headed for stitches. I never did get to see the gaping wound that had been covered by my bandage. Just as well, my curiosity having been more than satisfied by the sample picture they’d shown me during my consultation. When I asked how many stitches he thought it would take to repair my wound, my doctor said, “Oh, I’d say about 50 to 100.” I got the picture then.

Oddly, the next 45 minutes of stitchery was almost … pleasant. The little room was filled with young doctors, medical students, nurses, and me, all of us bantering like pilots about to go on a bombing mission. Nurse Amy, the bandage artist, was then left to sculpt me another, slightly less bulky “Phantom” mask; give me my sheet of instructions; a bagful of gauze pads; a roll of tape; and I was heading towards Lexington Avenue by three o’clock, in time to catch the 3:35 Jitney home.

If, in reading this, you have arrived at the question, “So what?,” I get it. What use is it to catalog for you the gory details of my “Mohs” surgery? Well, selfishly, it’s somehow useful to that hypochondriacal 8-year-old girl whom I described in “Before,” my previous column, who, some 70 years ago, was convinced she had leprosy and remained terrified of diseases and doctors ever since.

Until, maybe, now, she’s not quite so terrified (except, I think it’s excessively ironic that she’ll have to visit the doctor now every few months).

Also, perhaps it’s useful to someone who, reading this, might just get that “thing” on their chin, or back, or leg that’s been there for years, checked out, just in case it’s better that it not remain there.

Though it may prove to be “something,” it’s likely not melanoma. Here are some useful basic facts from the American Cancer Society, 2025:

“Having lighter skin color is a major risk factor for melanoma. Overall, the lifetime risk of getting melanoma is about 3% (1 in 33) for White people, 0.1% (1 in 1,000) for Black people, and 0.5% (1 in 200) for Hispanic people.

“The risk of melanoma increases as people age. The average age of people when it diagnosed is 66. But melanoma is not uncommon even among those younger than 30. In fact, it’s one of the most common cancers in young adults, especially young women … changes in the rates of new melanomas vary by age and sex. In people younger than 50, the rates have been stable among women and have declined by about 1% a year in men since the early 2000s. In people ages 50 and older, rates increased in women by about 3% per year but have stayed stable among men … melanoma death rates declined rapidly from 2013 to 2022, largely because of advances in treatment.”

In case those facts were too useful, let’s return to Jenifer’s Surgery Story. Update: My private nurse-cum-daughter changed my dressing on Saturday, and I saw my stitches for the first time. Impressive, but not as much as I thought they’d be.  They’ll be coming out when the Reporter does, this Thursday, and what’s left, I assume, will begin healing into scars.

I’ve seen some of my favorite actresses play characters with scarred faces — Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Gloria Grahame, etc.— but this is my life, not a movie, and this is my face. I wonder who I’ll be now?

I told my witty wizard of a young doctor and his wonderful team that I’d mention them in this column. Hope they read it to the end. There will be a test.