Greetings. My name is Susan Matley, and I am currently living with a head wound! This physical feature was not accrued in fisticuffs, nor was I attacked with a weapon. It didn’t even happen because I ran heedlessly into something.

 

Like when I was three and wanted to show Grandma Gretchen how to do a flying arabesque?

 

I was so excited I didn’t look where I was going and bumped the corner of my forehead really hard on a sharp angle in the living room archway.

 

That was a doozy! And lots of blood. We were whisked off to the clinic to get stitched up.

 

With a huge needle!

 

If I smooth the wrinkles out of my forehead you can still see the scar. Amazing, after 62 years!

 

The scar I’m working on this week won’t be as noticeable, because it’s on the top of my skull, where we parted our hair for more years than not.

 

What on earth were you doing to get wounded there?

 

Living a normal life, as best I can tell. The wound wasn’t caused by an accident. It got there as part of a decades-long process, facilitated by sun exposure: squamous cell carcinoma. In plain English, skin cancer.

 

Oh no! Are you going to die?

 

One day, 9, but not because of this. The wound is the result of a surgical procedure that removed the (noninvasive) carcinoma: Mohs surgery, named for the doctor who invented the surgical technique. It’s a procedure that removes as little healthy tissue as possible while removing all of the cancerous mass. The cool part is- –

 

I cannot believe you think anything to do with surgery is cool!

 

At your age, I wouldn’t have believed it either, Lily. But one of the things about aging is you learn to see the positives of surgical interventions, and this particular one includes getting the removed tissue analyzed right there, right then, at the surgical center. If the mass is removed completely with sufficient margins, it’s “one and done” as the current expression goes. If more of a margin is needed, you’re back in surgery right there, right then. So the problem gets solved in a few hours, rather than over several days or weeks. In short, it’s efficient and effective.

 

Then, there’s the healing part of it.

 

I last has Mohs surgery in 2020, before I became as much of a fitness devotee as I am today. Then, it was yoga and walking a few times a week. Now, it is weights, swimming, yoga, walking, and sometimes an online belly dance workout. On average, I spend seven or eight hours per week on fitness, and the weights and swimming are more intense forms of exercise than what I was doing before.

 

 

Naturally I’m impatient to get back to my regular fitness routine- –

 

Because we are a routine-driven individual!

When did that happen?

 

Probably when Lily got interested in theater and started setting serious goals. Back in your day, 9, we were still fighting the parental overlords, who had to force us to practice our pieces for piano recitals.

 

After Monday’s removal, the surgeon sutured the opening and covered it with glue. I knew he wouldn’t clear me to swim the next day, but if I felt up to it by Thursday he said it should be fine.

 

 

 

Thursday was yesterday. On Tuesday, the day after the surgery, I realized it would feel excruciating to smash my head wound under a latex swim cap any time soon. Also on Tuesday, I was determined to join a friend who had invited me to the opening concert of the Walla Walla Symphony’s new season. How could I resist, when Gustav Holst’s The Planets was on the program?

 

But what to do about the sutured, glue-covered gash on the top of my head? Aha! A soft beret I’d received a couple of Christmases ago. Pair it with a coordinating scarf et voila!

 

 

 

You look quite- -artsy.

 

Or maybe like someone’s eccentric aunt? Kind friends, and even my very nice ophthalmologist, commented favorably on what one of them called my boho look. And the concert was fabulous!

 

However, toward the end of the performance my energy drooped. Because head wounds, even minor ones planned for in advance, take time to heal. I even did the unbelievable and took a nap the next day.

 

I never do that!

 

I know! See how weird it’s been?

 

Age. Medical interventions. The occasional need to take it easy. It’s an ongoing struggle to accept these things. I do what I can to work through them, get past them, and get back to my possibly unrealistic idea of what normal life should be. Like Lily with acting goals, I’m setting my health span goals at a high but (fingers crossed) attainable level.

 

Because in spite of how long I’ve lingered on the subject of head wounds, I know that I, and all of you, are more than the sum of our health issues.

 

Go get ‘em, kids!