Stitches

Large squamish cell, level 3? Taken off .Should I be upset?

Two weeks ago, I pulled at a small dry flake of skin, for two days I dug at it and finally the next morning I woke up to a dime size inner tube shaped white thing with the tag intact inside now brown. I attempted to pull at the center and again could not get it to break free. So far a week I put an antibiotic cream on it because it was getting red and painful around the underside. My doctor was not happy to see it and referred me immediately to my derm. Usually a happy man he came into the room, placid, serious and went to numbing it and preforming a 20 minute surgery cutting, numbing, cutting, numbing burning and stitching forever. I ended up with a three inch incision and 10 outside stitches, When the nurse was taking out the bottle she said " level one?" and he said, no level 3. What is the level mean? He said I was in a 1.5% of the population that has these go undetected like this. This is the largest surgery for S.C.C I have had, I have had two others, but nothing like this. The scary part is, he checked me in June only four months ago. I am fair skinned and I have these flakes all over me. I am a little scared.

Public Comments

1. skin cancer has a very high percentage of being cured with surgery. the higher the stage the more involved it is with the surrounding tissue...check with the doctor about the diagnosis and have him explain what exactly it means.... if you are fair you should be wearing a 60 sun screen and protecting yourself from the sun. lots of people get pre cancerous lesions called actinic keratosis that turn into cancer like squamous cell cancers from excess sun exposure....