It’s always good to start a story with a bit of leg exposure. In the first photo, the before.

Now, two months later, the after. As one of my nurses said, ‘beautiful,’ and ‘now it’s completely closed, so no longer a wound.’

The rest of the story. And one more leg picture.

Healing

Five years ago, while dismounting a bike in Perry, Iowa, my right lower calf muscle scraped a pedal that left a deepish gash. I dressed it with a band-aidand rode on.

Out of sight and mostly out of mind for the next half-decade, except it never did really heal. Occasionally, I’d rebandage it and forget about it. Until last spring, when it reopened, Rebecca said, “You’d better go to the wound clinic.”

A test came back positive for Basal cell carcinoma, the better kind of cancer, in that it doesn’t spread beyond the tissue of origin. At least, that’s the theory. And our hope. The surgeon explained the Mohs procedure that, in my case, was done in the hospital under general anesthesia and took about two hours.

She cut away four times, thin layers of skin, and sent them to a pathologist to test for the offending cells. In the first photo, you see her precise work two days after the repair.

To replace the damaged cells, she placed skin grafting material over a hole about two by three centimeters. This wound would take exactly two months to heal, from the bottom up, with initially quite a bit of bleeding and draining.

So for the first week, my care nurses attached a ‘wound vac’ to drain the blood. I carried it in my backpack wherever I went.

Thankfully, the next week and for the duration of the healing, they replaced this behemoth with a small Pico canister that fit in my pants pocket.

The compression sleeve protects the incision and helps promote blood flow to the new skin.

Because I couldn’t get my leg wet, I wore a plastic covering when I showered or it rained. Amazingly, it sealed well enough.

In case you’re wondering, I did have to take my canister friend to bed, so I used my workout shorts with a pocket.

Humor

This morning, no machine, no drainage chord, no plastic sleeve while showering, and no compression sock. Just a 3 by 3 inch band-aid that I’ll wear for another month or so.

Sadly, no more Wednesday morning visits to the WinnMed Wound Center and the nurses that cared for me. I miss them. Because of staff rotations and vacations, I met 10 different professionals over two months of weekly dressing changes. All were women. It’s not often that a 76-year-old man starts his day cared for by people whose only concern is my well-being.

They became my friends. I learned about their children, partners, and vacation schedules. They asked me how everything went when I took my apparatus to Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City to join 70,000 others for a World Cup soccer game or how I swing a golf club without catching it in the drainage chord.

And, on the last visit, I think it was Jenny who said, “I’ll bet you check your right side pants pocket several times a day to see if Mr. Pico is hiding somewhere inside.”

“More than several,” I replied.

Hope

What have I learned? Most obviously, pay attention to cuts that don’t heal. On the few times over the years I thought about that persistent sore on the back of my leg, I’d think it can’t be anything too serious since it started as a laceration.

Yesterday, encouraged by Rebecca and many others, I made an appointment with a dermatologist to have a full-body scan to check out the various blotches and bumps that naturally appear on a septuagenarian’s skin.

Forewarned is forearmed.

But there’s something else about this summer journey that I’ll carry along, not in a backpack or pocket, but in my psyche. My aging body can still heal and fight off, with a lot of help from friends, including the intelligent and aware parts of me, and not the dumb and clueless ones, the various less than malevolent invaders that lie in waiting.

Not forever, and not as well as they could ten years ago, and not the big daddies that lurk and overwhelm regardless of defenses, on that matter, and thus far, I’ve just been lucky.

So, Paul, don’t pat yourself on the back too much. When something big hits, as it slammed into your brothers Pat and Peter this year, and just last week, your friend Rick, who was like a brother, you’ll face the end with their grace and good humor in mind!

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