Hello Honey12.

I see that nobody has replied to you  and thought I would tell you my story.  I joined this site because my son had bowel cancer and I was trying to find out as much information about his condition as I could.  As you see all the different posts you realise the enormity of the different cancer diagnosis that there are.  Many unusual names one of them being BCC so i looked this up because i had no idea what it could be.  Saw some photographs of BCCs and realised that the funny thing that i had on the end of my nose looked like the photograph.  Went to my doctor, who referred me to a dermatologist, we live near Aberdeen.  I got an appointment with a specialist who had travelled from Dundee to Aberdeen to see patients.  He looked at it through some instrument pressed against my nose, confirmed it was a BCC and said that he would do the operation to remove it at a hospital in Dundee.  A BCC is not the worst diagnosis that you could have but as they seem to be quite common on the face obviously there is a worry about the outcome of surgery.  From seeing him in December 2016 I got an appointment in May 2017 to have MOHS surgery to remove it.  They take the BCC out, test the surround tissue to make sure no cancer cells and if there were any, they would then remove a larger area.  I was very lucky that it was all removed in the first take and the lady that performed this decided that she could sew my nose back without having to have a flap or skin graft.  It healed well and I obviously have a scar down my nose but it is not that noticeable as time goes on.  I was awake during the procedure but because of the local anesthetics felt nothing apart from a tugging feeling it was not painful.  Looked a bit hideous as it healed but it did not take long.  I probably did not get as anxious about the whole thing as my son who was 35 died in January 2017 of his bowel cancer, 7 months after diagnosis which put my BCC diagnosis into perspective.  It is worrying and as I say we are all very concious about our appearance but it is a diagnosis with a good outcome and the plastic surgeons are very skilled.  I hope you do not have to wait too long and make sure to ask about MOHS surgery as that makes sure everything is removed without having to return for further treatment.

yours

leslie

Leslie

Thank you so much for your reply. Firstly my thoughts go out to you and your family for the loss of your son, im sure it did put things into perspective for you. You've given me the best advice and really appreciate every word.

I'm now more at ease.

Hope you are coping as well as you can, hopefully your BCC wont return.

All my love

Honey12

Hi Honey,

Leslie has given you very good advice (I'm so sorry Leslie for your loss). I just want to add that my dad had a BCC removed from his forehead a few years ago. Because it's on the face the Plastic Surgeon is more careful about scarring & they did a brilliant job. I know it's a long wait to have a BCC removed, unfortunately that's due to the workload at dermatology clinics these days. However, time spent waiting for removal will make no difference to your prognosis as BCC doesn't spread internally like melanoma. It may grow slighlty on the skin whilst waiting but it's not problematic. Can I just add, any skin cancer, particularly a BCC, is caused by sun damage, so please be careful in the sun from now on (sun cream, hat & sun specs).

Good luck & I hope you aren't waiting too long,

Angie (melanoma patient)

I’ve had 8 procedures for BCC, including 4 on my face and the first thing I want to tell you is - relax, you’ll be fine. You can’t even tell I’ve ever been operated on and the recovery time is quite rapid. You need to make sure that your surgeon performs a “Mohs” surgery. This reduces incidence of recurrence and mitigates scarring. I suggest you Google “Mohs”, as I don’t want to give you bad or incomplete info. Your procedure will most likely be performed under local anesthesia and on an outpatient basis. Going forward, make sure that your dermatologist performs a full body inspection for more BCC, because people who have one have a tendency to have more than one and the sooner you catch it, the easier it is to get rid of.  

Thank you angie for yor great advice

I hadn't suspected at all that itd be caused by sun damage, but i will be more cautious from the sun. 

Thank you so much Phill for your advice, i will try and relax now!

I will do a lot of research on Mohs surgery right now

Xx