Up-date on the face

So I got my face back and I'm quite pleased about it. While I was at SIUH, since I was there for about 5 days, they decided to send me a dermatologist to talk about my face. Yeah they had no clue what to do so they gave me 1% cortisone. Which actually seemed to help a little bit. But because of the anchovy incident I had to postpone my Sloan dermatologist apt. for another week. So that ended being last Thurs. March 3rd.

As soon as I walk in, everyone is all smiles, I'm like, ok once again Sloan rocks the house. They are just super friendly. The nurse is all laughs and we go over all of my symptoms. She takes a sample of skin from my face, just by scraping it. And it feels SO good, you have no idea how much I love clawing at my face. And she jokes that the scratching is for free, and promises she won't charge me though I'm clearly enjoying it. I'm telling you, it was a fun apt. And then we meet Dr. Loucoutre. He is fascinated by us, he knows I'm of Italian decent, but he's confused by John. He has an Italian last name but the Doc doesn't think he looks Italian. And then he accuses him of being "Northern Italian" which is funny, cause John's 1/2 Sicilian like me.

The doctor is from Italy but he's been here a long time. He's young (what else is new?) and crazy handsome! And has that overconfidence that I kind of like in a doctor. But he has that Italian pride. He wants to talk about the size of our families and if we're all close. He praises us for having big Italian families who get along with one another. He reminds me of John's Uncle Johnny. Uncle Johnny is from Italy, has a beautiful Italian accent and is beaming with pride. The first time I met him he pulled out a poster featuring famous Italian-American athletes. I fully expect Dr. Loucoutre to do the same. Now I used to be all "I'm Italian, blah, blah, blah" but the truth is I'm pretty darn American. The only thing Italian about me is I say "mopina" instead of dish cloth. I don't make a Sunday sauce and my meatballs are horrendous. But I make killer chicken chimmichangas!

Anyway, I digress. Turns out the doc has a ton of patients on tarceva, so he knows this face thing, it's not new to him. Again, I'm not unique here, I love that! And then he tells me something interesting, that disgusting crust that had developed over my face that was bleeding and making me sick just looking at it, well that was an infection. That was not a normal tarceva reaction. Turns out the antibiotics they gave me for the food poisoning is the reason my face started to clear up, not because of the cortisone they gave me. I was like, wow! But that's good to know, if I get the ickiness again I can take a pill for that. I was thrilled!

Then he tells me he's got two creams for my face, two shampoos for my maddeningly itchy scalp, a lotion that I totally do not understand that says it's for the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet. I have no idea why I need this (maybe it'll help me make better meatballs?) and something for my nose which is also being affected by tarceva. I was like, shit this dude is GOOD!

Then he eyes a mole on my arm and doesn't like the look of it. And he tells me it has to be dug out. Normally I would not let a derm do it, I'd actually get a surgeon, but this is Sloan and this guy actually seems to know what he's talking about so I say go for it. He very sweetly tells me not to worry, most moles are nothing but better to remove it being overly cautious than vice versa. I nod but honestly I'm thinking, dude I have Stage 4 lung cancer you think you can scare me?

BTW I learned today the mole is benign. But now I have 2 stitches in my arm, the first non-desolvable (sp?) stitches I've ever had outside of my mouth. I don't know why I felt the need to say that, I guess I feel like I'm not getting enough sympathy or something! ;)

But it's been a week with the new creams and my face is SO much better. Most of the bumpiness is now gone. It's still red, but red is nothing. Plus it covers nicely with foundation and color corrector, so on days I'm self-conscious I can just slab on some makeup. But honestly, it looks great. And now that it's improved everyone is saying things like "Wow, I can't believe how good your face looks." So everyone was def holding in their horror of the crusty face I had developed. I'm just glad that wasn't normal. Because I had been researching it online and no one said anything about having their face buried under a volcanic crater. And turns out SIUH did something right without even realizing it. They accidentally cleared my face. Which is kinda cool.

So let's here it for the Italians. HA!