Today, I lost a close pal.

For a few months now (years?), my mom and wife have been bugging me to see a doctor about a suspicious growth on my nose. Today I finally did it. The dermatologist I saw said it didn't look like anything to be concerned about, but he'd take it off and do a biopsy.

Now... it's gone.

The procedure was fairly painless. The doctor (he was actually a nurse practitioner, if I remember correctly), injected lidocaine around the growth and then shaved it right off.

The only problem we ran into was the bleeding. Because of my diabetes, I'm on a daily regimen of aspirin - which is an anticoagulant. It's never been a problem before, but this would not stop bleeding for a long time. After about ten minutes or so, he decided to cauterize the blood vessel responsible for the bleeding. That seemed to help some.

Finally, he taped a tampon to the edge of my nose and sent me home.

Before

After

Don't I look wonderful now? Much better than that awful growth.

The good news is that I was able to remove the taped-on tampon and replace it with a small band-aid.

Enjoy.