I wasn’t originally planning on writing about getting my stitches out from the surgery with my dermatologist. I have gotten stitches out before and while they can hurt it’s not a big deal. And I had been able to see for the past few days that the scar was healing really nicely and that it wouldn’t be a big deal. I was so happy that everything was going smoothly and was just ready for the stitches to be out so I could move on.
I knew when my doctor did the procedure, they sent it off to pathology to figure out what was removed. I had been told for over 15 years that this was a wart, but I questioned it since it wasn’t responding to treatment. I knew it was very unlikely to be anything bad like skin cancer since it hasn’t changed much over the years and no other doctors seemed worried about it. But my new dermatologist was sure it wasn’t a wart and he wanted to know what it was. Even though he kept saying it couldn’t be a wart, I was feeling certain that it was but it was some sort of rare one that didn’t respond to treatments. So while I was curious to get the pathology report, I wasn’t expecting much.
I got my stitches out on Tuesday and my doctor was very pleased with how everything was looking. My scar is healing really nicely and it should be almost invisible in a year or so. Even now with it being a fresh scar, it looks so tiny and it’s significantly less noticeable compared to what it was before. I had been told to use Vaseline on my stitches at least twice a day, and I went overboard with that and used it maybe 10 times a day. My doctor said doing that really helped the healing and to make it look as good as it does so far. And he told me to keep doing that for about 3 months to keep the scar from healing weird and being obvious.
After the stitches came out, then it was finally time to hear what pathology said. I thought I’d know before my appointment, but they only finished the results right before I went in. And my doctor was right, I didn’t have a wart.
It turns out, the bump on my face was a trichilemmoma. It sounds scary, but it’s basically a benign tumor of the hair follicle. It’s not common, but it’s not rare either. And while it can be a symptom of some other issues, for me it was just random. And the only way to get rid of them is to have the surgery that I had, so I’m glad that’s what we did instead of just a basic biopsy. Now that it’s gone, my doctor said it’s about a 95% chance it will never occur again there or in another spot. It really was just random and it’s done now.
When I found out that it was a benign tumor, I had to laugh. Until recently, I didn’t have much personal experience with tumors. Since I learned about my liver tumors, my idea of what a tumor is has changed. Even though I knew not all tumors were cancerous, having experience with non-cancerous tumors has made the word much less scary for me. So I wasn’t worried at all when I was told it was a tumor. It just was funny that of course I had yet another random medical issue.
And while I have had multiple dermatologists tell me over the years that it was a wart, I don’t blame any of them for misdiagnosing me. I’ve had other things in my life that were misdiagnosed and it’s never been the doctor’s fault. They can only use the evidence in front of them to figure out what might be the diagnosis. A majority of the time, they are right. Sometimes they are not. And I’ve never thought that they were bad doctors when they were wrong.
What does frustrate me is that I wasn’t a better health advocate for myself. I know what other doctors have done and what things haven’t been working. I could have said more about how often I’ve tried to correct this and the treatments didn’t work. I had one doctor previously offer to do a biopsy, but I didn’t push for it and I wish that I had. We would have figured out right after that was done that it was this benign tumor and I would have saved a few years of things not working. I can’t go back and change what happened, but I can use this as a reminder in the future that I should be less afraid to tell a doctor that I don’t think that enough is being done. That doesn’t guarantee anything would change, but I can make sure they hear me and my concerns.
For now, I’m just glad that this is done. I’m very optimistic about how the scar will look as it fades and I’m so happy that when it’s a bit less red than it is right now that I won’t always be worried if I remembered to put concealer on my face to cover it up (which is something I stressed about when I had the bump). I’m excited to have this as a thing in my past and be just another funny medical story I can share from time to time.
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