Thread: Not how I planned the weekend.

Good luck. Rapid changes sounds scary. I hope it's nothing serious.
Don.

My unplanned day occurred last Tuesday after an 'incident' on Monday. Had a call from my cardio at 8am Tuesday, was admitted to hospital at 9:15am, had pacemaker fitted at 7pm, was discharged at 9:15am Wednesday. I had a Loop Recorder installed last July, data was downloaded overnight as usual but this time revealed that my ticker had stopped ticking for 20 secs during the 'incident' on Monday hence the urgent need of the PM.

Good to see your doctor acting so quickly for you Grumbles and I hope your result is as good as mine.

Thanks guys. It seems you dodged a poor outcome with your pacemaker now fitted Don. Very lucky for you.

The doc who operated on me was air lifted to Melbourne for a heart attack only a couple of months ago. He'd checked out three times but the ambos got him back each time. Pacemaker is now fitted and he is good to go.

Originally Posted by Grumbles

Yep.......it's nothing like I had in mind but I'll back track a bit. Couple of weeks ago a freckle on my wrist began to change. It went to a darker brown.

One week ago a new freckle appeared on the other wrist and over the next few days it grew and was a tan colour, slightly raised and smooth as. Two days ago the first freckle developed a ragged edge and changed colour to a light purple.
.
This morning both had changed. They had grown, had a ragged edge, were a deep motley purple with black spots.

Not mucking around so I saw the emergency doc this morning and he immediately cancelled his appointments and took to me with needles and scalpel......both "freckles" and a fair lump of me now gone for analysis.

The doc was like me - stunned at the speed of change saying this sort of change is slow and takes months.

But for now the waiting game begins.........

That does not sound good to me, speaking as a melanoma survivor. Good on you for getting it seen and good on your doctor for getting on to it so quickly.

All the best, Grumbles! For the last 20 years or so, I have been having quarterly inspections by a skin doctor. Having 'Hibernian/Caledonian' type skin, I normally cop a bit of the liquid nitro treatment. I also have several scars from nastier growths.

Everyone should try for the quarterly check up, especially us Queenslanders.

Glad you noticed it and jumped on it early.
Hopefully that is all the treatment you need.

I had a melanoma scare moons ago after going to the Doc about something else and just asking him to check out an itchy mole on my gut. He looked at it through his big magnifier thing and booked me to have it removed under local the next day. Next day he did it and sent it off to the path. lab. for analysis .... came back after few days as a L3 melanoma.
Off to a surgeon a couple of days later and he said he'd cut it out under a local in his rooms ..... stuck the needle in me a few times and waited about 3 or 4 minutes, checked that I was ready by pricking me with a needle in the area then stuck the scalpel in. OUCH..... I felt the bloody thing go right in and it bloody hurt!
He shouted to his nurse for hypnovax or something and she gave him a big syringe which he quickly stuck in my arm and I was out like a light. I came round about an hour later with a big line of stitches both on the outside and in the gut wall to hold me together.
But the worse thing was waiting for 10 days until the all clear came that he'd got the lot out.
The surgeon apologised for the pain he'd caused by rushing and confessed that he should have done it in a proper op. theatre in hospital. I was not impressed. This same surgeon got into strife for not keeping correct notes of ops. and for altering notes. He retired not long after getting into deep poo for that.
30 odd years later I'm still around annoying the cook so he did something right.
Now I constantly get cancers on the scalp/ears and have them burnt off mostly but did recently have an operation which gave me a big scar and 20 plus staples in the scalp. Must be something to do with all that Scots/Irish stuff in my Pom background
Good luck to those with skin cancers, we love the sun but it's dangerous.
AlanH.

At least the doctors will monitor you for melanoma. Here the GP insists I have not had cancer as requires a specialist to treat not a GP. There is no way an Australian doctor would have treated that themselves. Then you have to fight the GP for a referral to the specialist and join the waiting list.

Next fight is cataracts as you only need to be able to see through one eye to meet heath and social security requirements. Personally I have sort of become used to being able to see through both eyes

Warm climate problems in a cold climate health system