November, 2025
The day of the procedure comes and I am super nervous. The appointment is right at the end of the day, so time drags slow and I feel like I can’t say a word. But as always Lisa is great and supportive and lets me just get on with it my way. We make it over the Churchill and the dept is completely empty which is really weird. But handily this does mean that I am able to get the procedure started early. Bet that doesn’t happen very often! I’m taken into a room that looks like a doctors office not the scary operating room that I was expecting and in comes Doctor Ben who will be doing the procedure. After a bit of small talk, he takes a look at my arm and says that there is no point just taking samples and instead he reckon he should instead just take out the red mark and the moles in one fell swoop because he tells me that a small sample could be hiding other signs of cancer. so they won’t be getting a true sample when the tests are later performed in the labs. He asks for a second opinion from his boss who is the head of the department and he agrees. So I’m now feeling even more nervous. 

The procedure starts, and I must say I was a bit surprised by it. If you haven’t had a procedure like this, you may be expecting that there will be a big screen hiding the op from the patient (me). No. No. No. What happens is you sit on a seat, put your arm on a rest and then the doctor cracks on. I’m a wimp when it comes to blood and gore so there is no chance I can watch this, so I turn my head to the right for the next 15 mins or so as the procedure goes on. I think I can still memorise what was written on the wall I was staring at. The other thing to mention, if you haven’t had anaesthetic before is that the bugger stings. Turns out the anaesthetic is vinegar according to Doctor Ben. No wonder it stings! So, Doctor Ben is doing his stuff, I can’t feel a thing other than an occasional prod/pull of my arm. After 10 mins or so, he says that the whole area has been removed from my arm and asks if I want to take a look before the area of skin gets tested. No chance pal!

He then tells me that he is now going to start stitching me back up and then we are all done within 15-20 minutes which I personally think was pretty impressive. But Doctor Ben tells me that this is a pretty standard procedure and he does them all of the time. Off he goes (home I think because it’s now passed 5pm) and he says hello to Lisa on the way out and tells her that the procedure was a success and that I should have results from the tests in a few weeks. I find Lisa, it’s not hard cos she’s the only one in the waiting area, and I tell her what has happened. As always she is the sensible one and says that I am better off having the whole area taken off my arm today rather than having more weeks to think/worry about it getting chopped off in a few weeks time. She is totally right of course!

So now comes a few weeks of taking it easy/keeping my arm elevated. A few days later the NHS advise me to take off the bandage protecting the stitches/my arm. So I nervously remove the stuff. Considering what I have had done, the arm doesn’t look horrendous but it doesn’t look great either. I need to clean the wound 3 times a day and apply Vaseline to it to help the scar recover as Vaseline keeps the scar moist. I’m told that in a. few weeks I can move from vaseline to moisturiser as that will also help the scar recover. So now a matter of getting used to it cos it ain’t going to be the same again. I had hoped that the rehab would be fairly quick and I’d be able to see my beloved Oxford United play the ‘Boro at home the following Sat but I definitely wasn’t ready to leave the house because my arm was very tired and bruised which made it quite uncomfortable for a few weeks. Shame, cos we battled to a great draw. well done lads!