Usually the Friday after graduation is low key, but I have people to hire before our summer quarter starts July 11. Since I knew it was likely to be low key, I scheduled interviews with job candidates for the morning and a dermatologist appointment for the afternoon.
The job interviews went very well--I started the hiring process for both candidates after the interviews. Gone are the days when I'd just write an e-mail to HR, an e-mail to the new hire, and that would be mostly the process. No, now there are background checks and drug checks and HR orientations--and it won't happen if there wasn't a job ad on the website and an application. Gone are the days when I could just hire a person I knew professionally. But happily, I do not have a requirement to interview x number of candidates.
Our process is laborious, and thus, I dread it. I forget about the upside to hiring: I might meet new people who are interesting and creative and enthusiastic about joining our school. That was the case yesterday, and so I felt optimistic.
I went out into the stormy midday and headed out to the dermatologist's office. It didn't take me as long to get there as I thought it might, and I had some time to wait before they were ready. Lo and behold, a long-time poet friend was also waiting, and we had some time to catch up in the deserted waiting room. What are the odds of that?
I go to the dermatologist at least once a year, and usually, I have a spot or two that I mention to the doctor. This year, I've been worried about a spot on my nose. It's not a very visible spot, but it doesn't go away, and occasionally it bleeds. I expected the dermatologist to say, "Of course it bleeds. Quit picking at it. It's a pimple."
He looked and said, "Yep. Looks like a basal cell. We'll do a biopsy to be sure."
He looked over the rest of me--no other spots--hurrah.
And then he did the biopsy. Having novacaine injected into the nose is no fun. And it felt really strange for the hour or two afterward.
If the biopsy comes back as cancer, I go back, and the doctor takes out more tissue, just to be sure. He expects a small scar, not like the other scars from my skin cancers. It's in the place in my nose near the opening, where it flares out a bit into the wider part of the nostril--I'm hoping it wouldn't be too visible.
He said, "You can have a plastic surgeon do it, but there's no guarantee that it would be any better."
Besides, it would be a small scar. No need for a plastic surgeon with this one.
So, last year's spot was an age spot, and this year's is likely a basal cell. Sigh.
Perhaps it's time to start looking for a hat--I spray my face with sunscreen, but I probably need the backup protection of a hat.
I left the doctor's office with a numb nose and a bandaid. As the novacaine wore off, my nose felt odd, like whisps of hairs were stuck to the bandaid. When I got home for work, I took the bandaid off--the wound is not too ugly, a small circle of a scab.
In the evening, we had a delicious burger plus a spinach salad with steak tips--beef heavy dinner but delicious, especially for a day when I hadn't eaten much. We don't usually run errands on Friday nights--we're both too exhausted--but we needed to get pool supplies, so off we went.
We ended the day in the pool. I watched the light drain slowly from the sky and said a prayer of thanks for all the blessings of the day, especially for cancers that are small and treatable.
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