My Longtime Nemesis Was Beheaded Today

May I announce that Gerald is no more, and no laws were broken in his beheading. Actually, while I was present for the event, I was looking the other way at the moment of Gerald’s demise, not that I would not have cared to see him dispatched.

Who, you might ask, was Gerald? Gerald was a skin lesion on the back of my neck, who had been there since the mid ‘70s, the Gerald Ford years. This stupid, tiny little thing, had been flaring up occasionally ever since. I could never get a doctor to take it seriously, until now. Gerald and I had an uneasy truce for decades. He would only irritate me on rare occasions and I could squeeze him like a pimple and everything would be fine, sometimes for months on end. But a few years ago, I was using something on the order of a hand sanitizer and wiped a bit on the back of my neck. Gerald must have been sensitive to alcohol, because ever since then, the durned thing gave me hell.

Amazingly, Gerald’s beheading was swift and painless. < 1 CC of Lidocaine and one painless slice and Gerald was off to wherever evil skin lesions go when they die, with a short visit to the pathology lab on the way. Had it been malignant, it would have spread long ago, but according to the Doctor, Gerald was only 3mm in diameter. My guess is that Gerald was actually a foreign body lodged in my skin, possibly gravel from an asphalt shingle. Whatever the case, by all appearances, a very thin slice into my skin seems to have done the trick. I won’t know for a month or so, but all current indications are good and the Doctor felt that he had gotten to the root of it.

I just had to post this. How often does someone get to say that they had their nemesis of 45 years beheaded?

 

It’s amazing how good it feels not to have that irritation on the back of my neck. When I was leaving the Doctor’s office, I felt like a weight had been lifted.

I’m very stoic.

 

All super powers are intact and accounted for.

Now I have pictorial proof.

 

It’s somewhat strange, because I had mentioned it to more than one physician and was unable to generate more than a cursory glance which elicited a remark that it didn’t look serious, but none of them wanted to tackle it. My current doctor is, essentially, retired, having closed his practice a couple of years ago, he agreed to work one day per week for a clinic opened by the local hospital and seems to be keeping fairly busy, and doesn’t have to bother himself with the mundane details of operating a business. It’s a good deal for him and he seems quite happy with the arrangement.

During my last annual checkup, a month ago, I asked for a referral to a dermatologist, but he took a look at Gerald and opined that this wasn’t a cyst, or anything deep, so he was willing to tackle it if I could come in at the end of his workday. So I did, and so he did. He took one last look and said that he’d just shave it deep enough to remove the lesion and that he didn’t see any reason to go all the way through my skin.

I have to say that it seems to have done the trick. I had zero pain, beyond a little bit of tightness last night. The doctor was certain that he had gotten to the bottom of the disturbed tissue, so I’m happy and there are no sutures requiring a follow up visit. I’ll be curious as to what the lab finds. Obviously, had it been malignant, it would have finished me off a long time ago. My money remains wagered that it was a piece of shingle gravel. Those little pieces of rock can be very small, very sharp and oddly shaped. Perhaps this one had a little barb that kept it embedded for all of these years.

 

Wow. That sounds like no fun at all. Whatever was embedded in my skin, assuming that something was actually embedded, had to have been very small. It’s still possible that there is a cyst or something of that nature lying beneath, but there are plenty of reasons to believe that is not actually the case.

At the moment, it looks like an abrasion, less than the diameter of a dime. It’s a little bit tight and itchy, but basically easy to ignore, at this point. Actually, a lot of people find me a bit tight and itchy, but basically easy to ignore, so at least I’ve achieved self-symmetry.

 

In an amazing coincidence, Gerald was an Irish Tenor.

 

There’s not really much to see, anyhow. It looks like an abrasion and is already healing rapidly.