All about my eye surgeries

A few days before I made my regular 6-month visit to my dermatologist, Dr. Bradley, a small blip arose on the top edge at the middle of my lower right eyelid, brownish and the size of a small wart.   He excised it and it healed quickly without really leaving any trace.  However after a week or so he was calling, to let me know that it had tested positive as squamous cell skin carcinoma.  He referred my to a pair of surgeons, the first to remove the growth using a Mohs technique and the second, a plastic surgeon, to repair the damage caused by the former.  These surgeons were Dr. Tristani and Dr. McCann.  It took a while to get the surgeries coordinated and scheduled, and this finally happened on Tuesday and Wednesday of the past week.  On Tuesday, Dr. Tristani did the Mohs procedure at the Revere facility which is across 500 West from Utah Valley Hospital in Provo.

By the way, I learned I had to pronounce squamous as SKWAY-MUS with a long A.  The vowel sound is not the same as for about every other the English word with the UA combination vowel sound such as squab, squabble, squad, squall, squalor, squash, squat, squaw, squawk, nor the word square which we pronounce with a soft E.  And now I also know that Mohs is pronounced MOZ with a long O, and is named after the doctor who invented the process.

Mohs is an outpatient procedure, which is done in stages, while the patient waits between each stage.  After the surgeon removes a thin layer of tissue, it is frozen and then examined under a microscope in an on-site lab.  The testing process takes 45-60 minutes.  If any cancer cells remain, the surgeon make a second incision in the precise area where cancer cells remain, removing another small layer of tissue, which is again tested.  The process is repeated until no cancer cells remain.  The whole process may be completed in an hour or so, or go on all day.  The former turned out to be true for us, thankfully.

After the initial incision was made on my eyelid and I received some temporary bandaging, we were ushered into a waiting room, and there found two other couples with a member also undergoing this Mohs procedure from the Dr. Tristani’s team, which consisted of herself and 2 nurses.  Interestingly we has some things in common with these pairs, especially the Stokers, a couple from Sandy where the wife was being also served by both Tristani and McCann, where she also had a carcinoma being removed from her eyelid, and that they were both currently serving as temple workers in the Draper temple.  We also found this couple later in the day at Dr. McCanns office in Sandy and the following day at the IHC Hospital in Murray which was the site for our reparative surgery.  I would guess that following Wendy’s MO, we will soon be going out to lunch with them.

After the Mohs

We were blessed in the Mohs procedure that Dr. Tristani got all of the cancer the first incision, Good News #1. The incision was nearly square and approximately 1/4th or 5/16th of an inch in size as I recall it.  After being released by the Tristani team, we then jumped into the car and headed to Dr.McCann’s office in Sandy for him to look at it and decide what he needed to do the next day.  He talked to us about drawing the two sides of the cut together and filling some space that this would leave at the corner of the eye with some skin “he would steal” from just outside the corner of the eye.


The next morning, Wednesday, we awoke early and arrived before 8 am at the outpatient surgery center of the Murray IHC facility.  Differing from the office setting of the surgery the prior day, this was a full-fledged surgical facility.  I had to get dressed in a hospital gown complete with boxer shorts, and there was a surgical team, two doctors plus an anesthesiologist, along with a couple of nurses, and a real operating room.  During the operation I was “sedated” according to their description, in which I could vaguely hear voices and see shapes and feel something happening to my face, but was about 95% oblivious to the world and didn’t care.

At the end, Dr. McCann taped a huge patch or bandage on the whole right side of my face, and after an hour or so of recovery we headed home.  On Friday morning we were back in his office in Sandy, where the patch was entirely removed, and got instructions for what we need to do for the next month or so of healing–eye drops every two waking hours with a special nighttime lubricant at bedtime and twice a day application of an erythromycin ointment to the site.  And I could also return to all my normal other meds, for heart, prostate, etc.

Two days with this bandage

The good news was the report from Dr McCann that he was able to close the wound without having to “steal” some skin from the side of my face (his word).  So there is only the one little incision to tend.  I had the thought earlier that I have so much extra tissue around my eyes, he should be able to close about any size of incision without needing to borrow tissue from elsewhere.  In fact I wondered if while he was working in the vicinity, he might take a tuck or two in the 81 year old bags around my eyes and make me look a few years younger.  I didn’t say anything about this, of course.

Anyway, that was the second Good News, that in the repair they needed to do only the minimal repair work on my face.  All that was left of the Mohs surgery was a thin vertical line about a quarter of an inch long, extending downward from the edge of my eyebrow, with the distinct possibility that when it heals the whole surgery will hardly or fully be not noticeable.  There were no visible stitches–they used glue, they said.

After the repair

I am left with a feeling of relief and humble gratitude.  I was a little apprehensive about these surgeons messing around with their scalpels right by my eye, but they were very good at their work.  And the cancer is gone, with a minimum of damage.  I am very grateful to have been able to have a priesthood blessing by two good priesthood holders in our family, Matthew and Scott.  And I am grateful to a generous and loving Heavenly Father for His support and help.  All is well.