My Experience

I have a history of suspicious skin lesions. Most recently, I had a mole that looked suspicious so the doctor decided to biopsy it.

In the past, I have had moles removed, and in one case my surgeon was not certain whether it was benign. For that mole, I had a “wide local excision” procedure under a general anesthetic to make sure that all traces of the mole, plus a wide margin of healthy tissue around the mole, were removed. The final pathology report showed that it was an unusual mole but without malignancy.

More recently, a mole at the top of my left leg started to become itchy and on a few occasions there was a little bleeding. Given my past history and the fact that itchiness and bleeding are warning signs of melanoma, I went to my physician who said that I should have it biopsied.

I was referred by my primary care physician to a dermatologist. I was taken by a physician assistant to the dermatologist’s exam room and asked to undress down to my underwear. Then I was asked to lie on my back and wait for the doctor. He came into the room, looked at the mole, asked a few questions and agreed it should be biopsied.

He asked me to lie on my side facing toward him (with the mole closer to the dermatologist). He then injected local anesthetic into the mole. After a few minutes, he took a scalpel and literally sliced the top of the mole off. I was a little surprised: I thought he would simply remove the whole mole and then stitch me up. There were no stitches, which also surprised me: instead, he left a hole, which continued to bleed a little. Then he left the room. The physician assistant instructed me to keep the wound moist with Vaseline and covered with a waterproof Band-Aid.

I was a little worried that I’d been left with an oozing hole at the top of my leg. I couldn’t figure out why the doctor didn’t just remove the whole mole. Recovery was not great: it kept oozing pus and it didn’t seem to heal or close up. I had to leave the country for travel, so I didn’t get a chance to go back to the doctor. It took about 4 weeks before the oozing stopped. I would guess it might have been infected (I did spray an antibiotic spray onto the wound).