Turning My Cheek

I think this is improving!

I nearly titled this post “rehab” because today makes 28 days. *laugh*

But the photo above was actually taken on Day 26.

The spot on my cheek is definitely on the ‘rehab’ upswing though — it took several tries to even get it to show on camera. (It’s still clearly visible to the naked eye. Cameras just do funny things.) Can you see it? Under my eye, on my cheek. It looks a bit gray-ish in this photo, but in actuality what you’re seeing is the end of a scab-over process. (The light scab peeled yesterday, leaving a pinkish new-skin mark underneath.)

I was supposed to use my chemo cream for 21 days. I stopped after 18, however, because by that time it had peeled off several layers of scab-over skin and was feeling quite raw. (Not to mention, it was looking a bit scary.) And since the chemo basically irritates it… Well, let’s just say that putting an irritant on raw skin is not my idea of a good time.

So at Day 18, I called it good.

At Day 26, the last(?) light-layer scab was showing. (As above.)

Today is Day 28. We’ll see how long it stays pink… I suspect it will look like a ‘typical’ scar once this is over, given that for ten years my ‘good’ skin has been hiding underneath layers of Shoulda Worn Sunscreen damage.

To my eye, the ‘bad’ spots — I had two discolored lumps (for lack of a better word) that appeared inside the original non-keratosis spot late last fall — are gone.

I see the dermatologist again at the end of June. Hopefully she’ll agree.

At the risk of this blog becoming retitled All About Middle-Aged Women’s Health (dermatologists and gynecologists and PCPs, oh my!), I will try to post about this again between now and then.

Meanwhile, I think the medicine is turning my cheek healthy again. 🙂