How To Know If You Have Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal Cell Carcinoma on Nose Early Stages

My cancer story started with a clear bump on my nose. It looked just like a blister to me. But it was way on the side of my nose so it was hard to see. I had to push my whole nose over towards my cheek while looking in the mirror, and even then I had to squint to get a decent look at it.

This all started at the beginning of this year, but I still can’t even remember exactly how I first noticed it. The clear bump on my nose was simply there one day.

I figured my pores had gotten clogged with sunscreen or makeup. No big deal.

You see, I put an SPF moisturizer on my face every single day of the year even when I don’t bother putting makeup on or leaving the house.

People tease me all the time and say I bathe in sunscreen. And my kids whine as I chase them around all summer long reapplying it on them constantly.

I’m that girl. The one who flosses every day and who reapplies sunscreen diligently. You know, just like I’m supposed to do.

And then the clear bump showed up on my nose.

I ignored it for a while.

A few days passed, and I wondered why it was still there, so I did something stupid. I poked it with a pin to drain the fluid. It looked just like a blister after all. I was surprised to see a lot of blood coming out instead of the pus you would normally find in a blister.

But again, I decided to ignore it. I went on with my life.

And then I did something stupid again. I read online about clearing it up with essential oils, so I started dabbing tea tree on it every day for a while. Don’t get me wrong, I love essential oils. But they were definitely not going to help me out in this instance.

By then, the days had turned into weeks, and I realized my wedding was getting closer.

I started to get really self-conscious about it because people kept thinking it was a drop of water on my nose and would try to wipe it off for me. My fiance or my kids would do it every time I got out of the shower, and it started to drive me nuts.

Even when I expressed concern about it to family and friends, literally everyone took one look at it and said it was nothing and would go away on its own.

Out of sheer vanity, I made an appointment at my doctor’s office to have it removed. The physician assistant didn’t even look at it before referring me to a plastic surgeon. She said they never remove anything from the face and it’s better to let a trained plastic surgeon do anything related to my face.

Basal Cell Carcinoma Diagnosis

It took a few weeks to get in to see the plastic surgeon and, when I met him, he was so kind. He was friendly and funny, and he didn’t seem to have a care in the world. He told me he would take a look with this giant lighted magnifying glass-looking thing.

He was so laid back, I wasn’t worried at all. He took measurements and called them out to the medical assistant to type them into my chart.

But then I heard him tell her it had a blood supply. And then I just knew.

My heart sank. I started to feel nauseous. Tears tickled at my eyes.

He slid his stool back, looked at me, and told me I had basal cell carcinoma.

I literally knew nothing about skin cancer at this point, besides the fact that two of my friends had survived melanoma and how nervous they were every time they had to go in for a skin check.

Panicked thoughts of it spreading to other vital organs and me leaving my children motherless raced through my mind.

He was completely calm, and he told me I had “the good kind of cancer.”

The what? There is no good kind of cancer in my mind. Cancer is evil. It makes people deathly ill and then it takes them away from their loved ones far too soon.

I started crying, and he reassured me. I started having a hard time breathing, and he helped calm me down. He informed me that basal cell carcinoma almost never spreads and that it grows very slowly. He then said I could have time to decide what I wanted to do and make a follow-up appointment or I could have it removed that day.

So I decided to have that clear bump on my nose cut off that very second. There was no reason in my mind to waste any more time.

So he gave me a shot in the nose and left the room for a while so the medicine could take effect.

I immediately started texting my friend who had melanoma because I was completely freaked out. She texted me over and over telling me it was going to be okay and agreeing that I had “the good kind of cancer.” She was the most amazing support system when I needed her most, and I will be forever grateful that she dropped everything to sit there texting back and forth with me, reassuring me when I was so scared.

Basal Cell Carcinoma Treatment

The shot was the only painful part of my basal cell carcinoma treatment. It is designed to both numb you and make it so that you do not bleed a lot during the procedure.

Once it took effect, the plastic surgeon came back into the room to begin. He took a small scalpal and made tiny cuts, taking a layer of skin off at a time. He placed these skin samples in a tube to be sent to a lab for an official diagnosis. Then he used a cauterizing tool to burn my skin, which he told me would kill off any remaining cancer cells left behind on the surface.

My nose was very sore for the next week, and I had to keep putting antibiotic cream and small bandages on it to keep it clean.

And then a nurse called me with my lab results, and she said it was in fact basal cell carcinoma. But the worst part was hearing that it had positive margins, which meant that there were still cancer cells growing on my nose.

I had to go back in, and the plastic surgeon asked if I would be willing to try a chemo cream because he didn’t think that I needed a full reconstructive surgery and skin graft at that point. Trying the cream first was a pretty easy decision to make.

He gave me a prescription for fluorouracil and told me to put it on twice a day for a week, then skip a week, twice a day for another week, then skip a week and come back in. Like most people I know, I consulted doctor google and found all kinds of fluorouracil horror stories. I looked at disturbing photos and read about how bad it burns your skin, causing pain and discomfort. I read the list of side effects and found everything listed from diarrhea and nausea all the way to mouth sores and chest pain. Do yourself a favor and don’t check google.

Luckily for me, the only side effects I noticed while using fluorouracil were nauseous and insomnia. Unluckily for me, fluorouracil never did a thing to my skin at all. It just didn’t work. I waited days then weeks for the burning and pain to come and heal me, but it never did.

In the meantime, I had scheduled a full body scan with a dermatologist. When they say full-body scan, they mean it. They look EVERYWHERE.

There was not a single place on my entire body that he did not look at carefully to make sure that I didn’t have any more cancerous growths. He even spent a bunch of time looking through my hair, as cancer can be easily missed on your head. Thankfully, he declared that I did not have skin cancer. That is, except for the cancer cells that were still lingering on my nose.

He told me he would call my plastic surgeon and discuss a treatment plan with him before my next follow-up appointment.

When I had my next appointment, the plastic surgeon caught me up to speed. Both doctors were confident that I had very little cancer remaining, and that I did not need reconstructive surgery in the hospital. We opted to try cutting and burning my nose a second time to attempt to get the last few layers off.

At least this time I knew what to expect. Although, the shot did hurt a lot worse the second time since I had already been through both the procedure and chemo cream for the last few months and my nose was very tender to the touch.

A week went by, and this time the margins were clear. I was cancer-free! I can’t even explain how good it felt to hear that news.

How To Know If You Have Basal Cell Carcinoma

So how do you know if you have basal cell carcinoma? Well, you don’t.

Please trust me when I say that no amount of googling, looking at photos online, or talking to people you know is a good substitute for going to the doctor.

My skin cancer just happened to look like a tiny clear blister on my nose. But it can look like an irregular mole, it can be rough or scaly, or it can even be itchy.

If you notice that your skin has changed at all (on any part of your body), make an appointment and get it checked out.

I was lucky. I had “the good kind” of skin cancer. But melanoma is no joke. It can spread and can kill you if left untreated.

I can’t even tell you how many people said my bump was either no big deal or that they couldn’t see it at all. I am so thankful that vanity pushed me into going in to have it looked at.

Had I not gone in, it would have continued to grow, and I would eventually have had to have a large section of my nose removed and a skin graft pulled over from my cheek. He showed me before and after pictures from that type of surgery. It was bad enough having it cut and burned twice and having to use a topical chemo for several weeks. I had no interest in going through that next.

But the procedures were actually the easiest part of getting a skin cancer diagnosis. Learning to deal with all the emotional components of getting the diagnosis was much harder.

So how can you deal with a skin cancer diagnosis if you get one too?

The most important thing I did was to talk to others. I had numerous conversations with my friend who survived melanoma and my aunt who worked as an ER nurse her whole life. I also cried, felt sorry for myself, and vented to my fiance and both my stepmom and my future mother-in-law.

What matters most is that you allow yourself to feel whatever it is that you are feeling. You may be scared, worried, or even angry and that is okay. Process your emotions and don’t be afraid to say them out loud. Even if they just listen, having someone to talk to helps you acknowledge your feelings and helps you start to reduce your anxiety and fear.

By being open and honest with people, I found out that I actually know several people who have also had basal cell carcinoma. About 5.4 million people get basal cell or squamous cell carcinoma a year, so it is very likely you can find someone who has already been through it.

And the more I talked it out with them, the more I realized that I was going to survive it just fine. And you will too.

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