Now most people when faced with the news that they have some form of cancer, immediately see their past lives flash in front of them, not me, I saw my future. And it was not pretty. No, really, it was not ’pretty’. I foresaw a new career as a sideshow freak - "Come See Krissy - The Ear-less Freak! Now Appearing With Vulpa - The Girl With No Nostrils!" I had fully visualized my new life complete with shaved head and newly applied henna tattoos and a couple of earrings glued to the side of my head just to drill home the point that there was nothing there to hang them on.
All of this was brought on by the surprising news that the itchy spot behind my ear that had started hurting was a kind of cancer called Squamous Cell Carcinoma and had to be removed. Not with drugs, or chemo, or creams... they had to cut it out. And soon, because it could spread to my lymph system and I’d be basically fucked if that happened.
Soooo... I was told to report for surgery at 5am in about a month. This gave me a nice long time to stew over the many possibilities of the outcome of this surgery. The cancer was located on the back of my left ear, right in the crease where the ear meets the skull. How the fuck you get cancer there I have no idea. I was told my earlier years of sun worshiping were more than likely the cause of this new thorn in my side...er...ear. But the last place on my body to get sun other than my asshole, was the BACK OF MY FREAKING EAR! Matter of fact, I would venture to guess my asshole got more sun that the back of my ear as I was fond of swimming nude. Anyway, as my friends and family informed me, I should be thankful it was not my nose and stop being such a whiny baby.
My doctors were all great peeps and very informative. They were young and preppy, and I felt they were very capable and would take good care of me. They let me know right up front the possibilities and dangers of this operation. What they would do is remove the obvious cancer then start removing skin in a radial motion around the initial area and send skin samples to the lab, then wait to see if the skin had cancer cells and if it did, they would remove that area and proceed to the next 1/2 inch or so. This could go on for any number of hours, so they could not give me any clear idea of how invasive the surgery would end up being. It could be just the area behind my ear and part of my skull, or it could be most of the outside of my ear. Most of the outside of my ear. This statement rang hollow in my mind and was just about all I heard from that point on. I’m not extremely vain, at least I don’t think so, but I wear my hair very short and my ears are for the most part extremely visible and pretty darn cute, so these guys are telling me I should look into a longer hairstyle? NEVER!!! They assured me that if part of my ear had to be removed, that plastic surgery had made leaps and bounds in ear-reconstruction and I would be just fine. I did not have the world’s best insurance and somehow I just knew I would not end up with a beautiful custom designed snap-on ear, but the Walmart special that was a little off color and attached with Velcro.
Now as I’m mulling over this happy news, they go..."Oh yea, one more thing..." Now there’s a statement that is rarely followed by anything you want to hear. So I glare at them with a "what could possibly be worse than removing my ear" look and I’m informed that it is very common with this kind of cancer, being in the location it is in, to have to remove the spit glands on that side of the face.
"Oh really? My spit glands? OK, OK, well I can still slobber from the right? right?"
"Oh Yes Ma’am. However...in order to remove these glands we have to slice you from ear to chin, just under your jaw line."
"I see...so on top of having no ear, it’s gonna look like I dated OJ? Is that what you’re saying???"
At this point I’m sure my normally dulcet voice is reaching levels of shrill that are normally associated with a Banshee. I am again told the severity of this particular cancer and asked if I enjoyed being alive. Sheesh. At this point, I’m not so sure death wouldn’t look better on me.
So the morning of the surgery my best friend, who is also an RN, drives me to the hospital, and as I am laying there counting backwards from 1000 as instructed, she squeezes my hand and gives me that "Be brave!" look which really translates into "Man, you are soooo fucked." I speak with the surgeon one last time and beg for the life of my ear. My plea’s fall on deaf ears... pun intended. I slid into darkness...
...only to be wakened rudely by my best friend, the nurse, who is shaking my shoulder softly. My eyes snap open like a crazed Chatty Cathy Doll and I frantically raise my hands to my head only to be greeted with a grapefruit sized bandage that covers my entire ear area and is apparently sewn into my scalp. My friend yells out for the doctor... and my surgeon enters and grabs my hand and tells me it’s OK, I have an ear! Holy shit I have never been so thankful to one person in my life! I congratulated her on being the best damn surgeon in all of Texas, possibly the world! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! And with tears in my eyes I asked demurely about my neck? All in tact? Yes? There was no need to go Sweeney Todd on my ass? Glory Hallelujah!!!! I giggled and promptly fell back asleep.
Once I was comfortably ensconced in my bed back home, I could finally breath a sigh of relief and start bitching about the pain and the fact I had to sleep on my right side. I’m a left sided sleeper dammit. I also had a large clear plastic bandage on the upper part of my left thigh. They had taken a credit card size strip of skin for a skin graft on my ear and now this clear bandage was filling up with blood so it looked like I had a intravenous drip bag taped to my leg. Ugh. But all in all I was pleased as punch with the fact I was not gonna be a geek with Barnum & Bailey.
After about 3 or 4 weeks they were finally going to remove the huge bandage from my head. I naturally assumed they would give me some kind of pain killer before snipping and pulling the threads out of my skull. Nope. "Snip Snip Yank Yank" Ouch!!!!!! Dammit. Then they slowly removed the various layers of padding and cotton that was holding my ear together so the skin graft could take hold, and luckily it had done just that and beautifully from their description. I had to take their word for it because there were no mirrors in the nurse station. But everyone agreed that a superb job had been done on my ear and all was as it should be. I was so happy!
You know, being happy is just plain over-rated. I was finally released from the nurses station and was waiting for my papers to release me from the hospital when I realized I needed to pee. I had been gently touching my ear with my hand this whole time, trying to feel the damage and what all had been done to it. I could feel lots of stitches and swelling, and a lot of it was numb because as I had been warned, nerves would be damaged and I would have areas with no feeling that may or may not ever go back to normal. Big deal I said... "I HAVE AN EAR!" So I entered the bathroom and of course glanced into the mirror. Wow I looked like shit, my eyes were sunken, my skin pasty and white, and my ear... my ear... MY EAR WAS STICKING STRAIGHT OUT!!!!!!! I just about fainted. Instead of laying nicely close to the side of my head like a proper ear, mine was doing an impression of a WWII Cessna wing - it was horizontal! WTF!!!!!!!
It had a right angle bend that made me look all the world like Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. MY EAR WAS STICKING STRAIGHT OUT!!!! W!!!! T!!!! F!!!
I’m not the kind of woman who cries easily, but I started sobbing. I somehow managed to pee during this.. you ever notice how hard it is to cry and pee at the same time? Strange huh? So I eventually sat back down in the waiting area which was mercifully devoid of other life forms and proceeded to feel VERY sorry for my ass. Oh yea, I’ve still got an ear, but it was totally fucked up. I even considered telling them to make the other one match so I could at least pursue my side-show employment as "The Human Dumbo! Watch her flap her ears in a futile attempt to fly!!"
I spent the next 3 to 4 months wearing a headband that bound my ear tightly to my head (yes, it hurt like hell), and subsequently helped to cover the lovely bald spot they shaved into my head, most of which would grow back, except for a half dollar sized area that was the recipient of my thigh skin. My ear is 99.9% normal looking. If you look real close you can see a tiny bit of scaring on the top of my ear, and a lot of scaring behind my ear, but who gives a rats ass, its behind my ear. Oh and the cute lil credit card patch on my thigh. I kinda wish they had taken it from somewhere that doesn’t show when I wear a swimsuit, but would you really want ass skin transplanted to your head? I think not. I’m happy, my ear is happy, and its been over two years now and no recurrence of the cancer. So all is well. I still enjoy the sun and bathing in its light, I just wear a little stronger lotion than I used to.... just in case.
