Sunday, June 10, 2012

Happy Basal Cell Birthday!

Warning: Not for the weak of stomach

In January Calder ran into David Meyers at the airport, an old Timpview buddy who is now a dermatologist in Lindon. Calder knew he needed some basal cell cancer removed from his face and figured it would be great to get it taken care of while he was already taking time off after Axel's birth. Lets just say March was a busy month for us. Axel was born at the end of February. A week later Stella broke her arm. Later that week, on his 35th birthday (Happy Birthday), Calder had the surgery (a few days after Stella broke her arm, and a day before she got her first cast). 

His surgery ended up being more invasive than we expected and forget a birthday party, Calder was out of commission for a good week. A week and a half after giving birth I was in the best shape of the lot of us. I held up pretty well, minus one major (minor) breakdown when Calder was laid up in bed, I'd been up multiple time with Axel during the night (he was just over a week old, after all) and Stella came running into my bedroom holding her new pink cast in her hand, "look mom, it came off" (amazing how quickly children master the passive voice.) 

Knowing that I had to go back to the hospital/clinic with a newborn and a broken-armed toddler (who now knew what a cast was) by myself while my disfigured husband lay swollen and depressed in bed pushed me to the edge of my postpartum cliff and tears were shed. But we all recovered in the end. Dr Meyers did an impressive job on Calder's face. And now, unless you are up close you hardly notice the scar. But it was a bit dramatic at first--this the play by play that I got from the doctors office while rocking a newborn with my foot and coaxing a toddler into a cast:





2 comments:

shayna said...

Holy crap. I had only seen the stitched up face, not the open face. Calder, you look like a million bucks now. Nice job recovering from open face surgery.

Ernstfamilyfun said...

Oh my goodness!!! Tell Calder I am so sorry and hope he gets better fast!!