Skin Problem

I have had a sore on my ankle for over a year. I believe it started with an insect bite. So, ten days ago, I went to see my doctor about it. He found it interesting enough to take a biopsy. Last Monday, a dermatologist called to say that it was a basil cell cancer and it had to be taken out. My appointment was today at 12:30 PM. I got there at 11:45 AM, checked in and was advised to take a seat in the waiting room. There were two waiting rooms to choose from, each had 12 chairs in them. Nearly all the chairs were full. A number of people had bandages on their face or nose. I was called at 12:45 and told to go upstairs to another waiting room where the surgery rooms were. After 15 minutes I was taken to a surgery room (there are eight of them on this floor.) and when the doctor came in he looked at my ankle, nodded his head, and told the surgery nurse to start preparation. Then the doctor took a closer look, with high magnification, at some thick and scaly skin on my lower leg, just under the knee, and said he wanted to get a biopsy. The nurse had already numbed my ankle and now proceeded to numb my leg. She said that they always work on the largest one first. The one on my leg was about the size of a quarter, on my ankle the size of the fingernail on the little finger. When the doctor came back he got a razor blade and slid off some of the skin on the leg. He left with the sample. There is a lab on the premises and a reading would be done right away. The nurse put a bandage over the wound and sent me downstairs to that waiting room. At 1:45 I was called upstairs and placed in a different surgery room, different nurse. The doctor came in, said he needed to remove more and proceeded to do it. This time he used a scalpel and was taking one level down, but, I could not tell how far down. He left with the cutting, and the nurse put a bandage on the wound. She explained to me that their method was to take as little flesh as possible while still getting all the problem cells out. Back to the downstairs waiting room again. At 2:30 I was called upstairs again and informed that more had to be removed. I was placed in a surgery room, again different than the two I had previously occupied, different nurse again. We played this merry-go-round two more times, a total of four cuts. On the fifth time, at 5 o-clock, it was all out. Each time I was in a different room. In the last room I was stitched up by the stitching doctor. She was a small lady and did her work just as any other seamstress does. She discovered the elasticity in my skin and said it made her job easier. She did a lot of stitching but for closing up she used staples, I think I counted eight. I have an appointment for next Monday to do the ankle.