Holy Moley

I am a moley person. I have a lot of moles. My mother tried to put a spin on them by calling them "beauty marks" but how beautiful are they when that same woman kept thinking one on your bum was a fleck of poo when you were a baby and would try and wipe it off? Every time I see a new one on BR's little body I just say, "We need more sun screen on you." My son on the other hand is translucent. His freckles freckle. Still, I don't try and spin it by going around telling him they are angel kisses. But I digress...

My first trip to see Dr Stone a few months ago he looked me over and found some moles that were needing to be removed and a few to watch. He scraped them and I was surprised at how little they hurt at the time and how much they hurt later after the local wore off. Some time after it's over I get a call from the Dr's office. Two of my moles came back from the lab as pre-cancerous. I am like, whatever, I have irregular pap smears every time. Every time. They tell me that if any moles they scrape actually reappear, to call them immediately. They do. So I do. And three days ago I went back in.

I stupidly think, I'm here so they can look at the moles that came back. They're gonna look at them. And see them. So they can tell if later they need to remove them. I wear loose pants and a loose shirt so they can get a look at these moles they wanna see. And while they are discussing all of these things, "This one we need to burn off again, this ones fine,"...I'm thinking..."OK later when I come back they can do that." He wants to know if there are any other moles any where on my whole entire body that might possibly have escaped our mine sweep last time. And then I remember. My poo mole. I tell him that my Mom used to try and wipe one that is on my bum. Because it looked like poo. He is very interested in the poo mole and wants to see it. I tell him I have no idea where it is. He says no problem what will happen is that I will get a drape and the nurse will locate it and then they will come in and the drape will be torn just so and all they will be able to see is the mole. I picture in my head the position a baby is in to have a butt change and I sort of lose my breath. Ankles at my ears? Oh no way.

The nurse drops the table cloth on my lap and I shout, "We're doing this NOW?" And to her credit she just says, "Yep." I'm like, "But I didn't shower. I've been reading Mockingjay all morning." She has a wipe for me. I ask to use the bathroom where I take a spit bath and cross my fingers. She tells me she wants me to disrobe and cover with the cloth and wait. While waiting my imagination runs wild. I had not mentally prepared for this. For any of this.

I have a moment to take off my pants and then I realize I can leave my shirt on. Which is super awkward. It's what Mr Merritt calls "Donald Ducking." I sit on the end of the table and wait. She comes back in and tells me I can lay face down. I exhale. She tears a hole in the paper and goes hunting. She is looking...around...pretty closely...and doing a...pretty thorough job. And she says, "I don't see it". I tell her, "I wish I could help you." I just know it's around there somewhere. She looks on the outer cheek area and pokes me. "Oh, It's just right there." I drop my head. Then she says, "Oh, there is a little hair in it, let me get it." And I feel a tiny, PING. And I say, "You did not just pull a hair out of my butt mole." She says that she figured I would rather it be her than the doctor. And just when I finish thinking how I actually would rather have not ever known I had a butt mole hair at all, the air conditioning kicks in and my entire drape just simply lifts up...and blows away. I am now on the table. Butt up. Naked as a jay bird. The nurse leaves the room faster than I have ever seen someone exit a room in my life, and I know it's to laugh. I can not fault her that.

I pick up the drape, lay down and try and adjust the hole in the paper over the approximate area she poked with her finger, then I securely tuck it under me. It's a long while before anyone comes back in. They are glad to see the poo mole, they aren't super concerned but since it's on my hiney they feel I should scrape it now to avoid having to come in and drop trou every single visit I have. I agree wholeheartedly with that. In total, they re-scrape moles on my rear, my arm, my chest and my knee. On my inner left leg they took some kind of core sample of skin that looked like a small gummy worm and then stitched me back up and told me not to do anything or go anywhere or get wet for a couple of days.

I immediately called Brett and Julia and told them the entire story. And then I laid down in bed and read the rest of Mockingjay wondering how she could handle big injuries when I couldn't even handle four stitches and some gratuitous nudity. I am no Katniss Everdeen. I wasn't even about to re-tell this story EVER but I realized that if my good friend was brave enough to tell her story of Manhattan and Friday the 13th here: http://www.jetsetcarina.com/ I could tell my tiny little doctor story. Enjoy.