I noticed a hard lump on my lip yesterday. Lead pipe cinch it's cancer. If so, I will need Mohs surgery, where they cut some out, put it under a microscope, I wait, and they repeat until it's all gone. I've had this surgery three times (nipple/chest, lip, chin), the last time around 08. My last lip surgery was 12/04, just before the 05 Orange Bowl National Championship game (USC 55 Oklahoma 19) in Miami. We were there. The bandage fell off at halftime. I can't get in to see my dermatologist for a biopsy until 6/8. He's out of town. Lip post surgery is a lot of fun, drinking through a straw, tiny bites of food.

 

Man, sorry to hear that! does not sound like a lot of fun, but also hopefully relatively easy to treat/remove relative to other forms. Wishing you well as you go through this!

 

Thanks. Yeah, short of Melanoma it's never fatal.

 

Suckage! Sending good vibes for the procedure and healing.

 

I hope it works out well for you, lets hope it is benign. Any chance having a convertible increases the risk ? I always drove with a hardtop on my S2k as I am susceptible to skin cancer.

 

No, it's probably a malignant carcinoma. The biopsy will tell, but my experience with this tells me it's cancer. It's very treatable. I'm sure that driving a convertible increases the risk.

 

George!!! It all will be good!!!

 

Hope you can get it taken care as comfortably as possible. I would say that your lips are one of the only areas that are exposed to the sun that you really can't put much on to protect them.

 

I get some valium first, then a local, so I don't feel anything.

 

Thanks, all, for your concern and kind words. I'll never be in a lot of pain. I get 2 5mg valiums under my tongue to mellow me out, then a massive local, then another if the procedure goes long enough, then Norco afterward when the local wears off. It's just the discomfort of sitting through the cutting and then the waiting (lots of reading material), then more cutting and waiting, and then a stitched up lip for about 10 days and being careful with that, The last time afterward I was in a meeting, did too much talking, my lip split open again, had to be stitched up again, and wait another 10 days. Fortunately, the new stitches came out on New Year's Eve, the day before we flew to Miami for the Orange Bowl. (New Year's Eve has got to be the best day of the year to travel. No one does it.) We even got to our hotel in Aventura, north of Miami, in time to watch most of the Rose Bowl on TV. My surgeon said don't jump around, yell, and act crazy at the game, or my lip could split open again. I didn't listen to him, but I was OK.