My Morning Mole Excavation, Part 1

As nervously jotted down in my journal while waiting at the dermatologist's impressively modern decor office to have two suspect moles removed:

In addition to ridding my body of two round, brown morphing masses, Dr. Yun will no doubt also check on the progress of a rigorous acne regiment she prescribed me a month ago … at which time I’ll sheepishly admit due to my overly-endowed guilty conscience that I never applied diddly squat of her recommended zit zapping night solution, not even once.

I also never filled my Rx for oral acne meds. When money is tight, you worry about putting healthy food in front of the kids first. All other items, especially vanity-enhancing beauty/skin treatments, quickly nose dive off the priority survival list. I figure I’ve lived with painful, embarrassing cystic acne for fifteen long years. What’s another few months more? Oh, how I whine.

My five-year-old son, The Maestro of Mouth, ever so sweetly informed me the other day that I should audition to be the next Pussycat Doll. (We’d just heard something on evil Radio Disney about a new reality show that ends with some hussy singer ho being crowned the next Pussycat Dolls band/harem member. You know, the bubble gum pop chart topping vixen wanna be's who sing, “Don’t ‘cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?”)

Mouth said, “You’re pretty enough to win, Mommy. Way pretty enough. Except for your face. I mean, all you’d have to do is take out that skin-colored putty stuff you put on your face in the morning and cover up all those red bumps. Then they’d definitely pick you.”

'Funny he chose the word “pick.”

That was the second time I had to walk away from Mouth with tears welling up in my eyes and try my hardest not to take his unknowingly hurtful, uncensored kid commentary on my bad skin personally.

The first time was even harder and cut even deeper; Mouth was four when he first noticed my breakouts.

He had done something, I can't remember what, and I was “limit-setting” with him. Forget that. I’ll call it what it really was. Mouth got into trouble and I was disciplining him. I crouched down to his eye level and repeatedly asked him to make eye contact with me. He flat out refused.


Next I asked, “Why can’t you look at mommy when I talk to you?”

He gazed down at his camouflage canvas skateboarding shoes and said, “I get nervous when I have to look at your face so close up, mommy.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s like I’m looking right at your ugly pimples up close and that scares me. Why don’t other moms have those?”

Gee, I don't know. Better genes. Cash for fancy creams and facials. Who knows?

Now, a year and a half later, I sit on pins and needles on a hard plastic dermatologist’s exam room chair facing the Ritter 75 Evolution automated operating table. My heart is pounding. My hands are beginning to tremble. I'm such a wus!!!

They're just a couple of small, pesky moles, right? So why am I so nervous?

I spy Dr. Yun’s reassuring American Board of Dermatology certification hung on the wall opposite me. Good. She's more than qualified to hack me up.

A bunch of spent needles are visible through the plastic BD Sharps Collector biohazard bin. Needles never scare me. I'm just not a fan of becoming hole-y like Swiss Cheese.


I’ve been asked by a gentelman in periwinkle blue scrubs to move to a different room. Phew!There’s no monstrous Ritter 75 Evolution surgical torture contraption to be found in my new holding pattern room. Just your standard gyno-exam style reclining, adjustable pleather exam bed.

I wonder if the doctor will use the nearby Hyfectrator 2000 Electrosurgical Unit to cauterize -- that is burn off like toast -- my two raised moles long in need of excavation.

Does burning flesh smell as putrid as people say? I bet it does, and I hope I don't hurl.

The thick-maned male nurse has just informed me that the good doc will “shave” my moles off. Hold the barf bag, Marge.

Wait - OhMyGawd! Mole "shaving" seems worse than being fried. Now I feel queasy. Where’s that barf bag again?!

I ask the dude-nurse guy, “I had two of my three children at home in bed with not a drop of medication, so why am I so scared to have a few moles removed? Why am I such a wimp?”

He replies smugly, “You’re in for quite a surprise then.”


Then he winks at me and casually strolls out the floor-to-ceiling heavy metal door. Creepy door. Very creepy. Shearing off parts of my body is kinda' creepy too.

Wha'?! So not fair. Whaddya’ mean? Come back, suspenseful nurse-man! Am I in for a good surprise or a bad surprise?

How cheap of Mr. Male Nurse to leave me hanging scared like that! Toying with the emotions of a patient awaiting minor surgery! Karma, my friends, karma.

To pass the time I’m snooping around. Big wup if you’re not surprised! I’m even snapping a few private-eye photos of the strange, sharp dermatologist equipment that's about to be put to use on me.

Weird. I’ve just discovered a plastic device called a “seizure stick.” Now that’s frightening. Hopefully I won’t seize, especially because the prospect of swallowing my stale, burnt coffee and acid reflux tasting tongue isn’t so palatable at the moment.

If our bodies are as smart as we’d like to think they are, then humans should automatically release the buttery sweet taste of Werther’s Original hard candies a milli-second before seizing, no? Just a random, time-passing thought from a very nervous patient waiting for the doctor going on an hour now.

How to stay calm while awaiting the imminent chop of the surgical knife? Answer: Pound Listerine Breath Strip after burning Breath Strip in nerve rattling anticipation of a possible tongue deep-throating seizure. Good. At least I’ll be minty fresh before throwing up from nerves. So what if my green food coloring stained tongue might spontaneously combust?

When the hell is this thing going to get under way? My husband’s at home juggling a “serious” business conference call and our livewire 3-year-old and 2-year-old. He's already nagged me ten times this morning about how I must, must, must try to convince the doctor to see me early so he can hurry back to the office.

Oh, no. Here comes Dr. Yun now and she looks hungry for my potentially cancer-tainted flesh. Well, no, she just looks like her pleasant, relaxed self.

Let the mole excavating begin!

Check back soon for Mole Excavation Part II.