A Nose for News

Today is a good day.  It's a good day because it isn't yesterday any more.  "And just what's the matter with yesterday?" you ask.  Well, yesterday I had a Moh's surgery to remove a small skin cancer from the tip of my nose.  My understanding of the Moh's procedure is that one skin cell layer at a time is removed, then studied under a microscope to see if the cancer has been completely removed.  If not, then they take another cell layer, continuing until the whole thing is gone.  The objective is to minimize scarring.  

This is the third procedure I've had on my nose.  Each time the cancer in question has been a basal cell, and so it isn't the dangerous kind of skin cancer.  Nevertheless, it has to be removed, and so that is how I spent my morning yesterday.  This morning I removed the pressure bandage that has been in place, and it doesn't look too bad.  Here...see for yourself:

(Now, please tell me you're old enough to remember Jimmy Durante.)  My nose is kind of swollen, as are my cheeks and below my eyes, but the incision itself is barely visible, even with the stitches still in place.  I have confidence that it will be a good result.  The same doctor has performed all three procedures on my nose, and he is a master.  It's good to have someone you can trust.

So the way it works is that they do their little bit of cutting, then usher you out to their comfy (really!) patient waiting area while they do the pathology on the slice of skin.  There you wait with half a dozen other folks in various stages of facial bandaging until the doctor is either ready to close the incision or to take another swipe at it.  It is only moderately mortifying to sit there with a golf-ball sized hunk of gauze taped to your face.  Heck, I'd just love to go shopping at Nordstrom that way.  Possibly I could start a new fashion trend.

But with all that waiting, I had plenty of time to finish up my first Quilting Snowlady block:

I was really glad I took this along.  Some of you know that I have claimed embroidery is relaxing, and I think I proved it to myself yesterday.  After the first bout of needles and cutting, I went into the waiting room with my hands trembling.  It was a little difficult to settle down enough to do the precision stitching required by the quilted jacket she's wearing.  Nevertheless, after about ten minutes, I was feeling ever so much more relaxed, and the rest of the procedure was less anxiety-provoking.  There's something about narrowing one's focus to such tiny work that blots out all other distractions.

When all was said and done, I came home thinking whoo hoo!  Now I have the whole afternoon to sew.  Not so fast there, Cowgirl.  What I actually did was to come home, ice my nose, take some Tylenol (as instructed), wait for said Tylenol to work (which it did not), take something significantly stronger, ice my nose some more, then mercifully fall asleep in the chair for the remainder of the afternoon.  It was probably the best thing I could have done under the circumstances.  So no sewing yesterday.

Today I'm feeling quite a bit better despite my sore and swollen nose.  With that piece done, I made up the next block for my Vintage Miniature Sewing Machine quilt.  It's been a while since I worked on this one because the block-of-the-month was held up by summer in Australia.  The next one I'm doing is the Singer 20, and this is the 11th of 12 blocks.

Here is a photograph of the actual machine:

The information that came with the block tells me that the Singer 20 dates from 1910 and it was the first toy machine that Singer produced.  It is recognizable by the design of the handwheel, which is referred to as an "x-wheel" or "four spoke".  Later versions of this machine had various numbers of wheel spokes, thread route numbering systems, thread tension regulators, and differing grooves for the table clamp.

Also on the finished pile since the last time I blogged is my quilt for the March Doll Quilt Swap.  I've already mailed this off to my partner in Sweden, but you still only get a peek until she's received it at her end.

Of course, you can always send a friend request to my Facebook page if you want to see it sooner.

On today's agenda is to do a little housework and then spend the rest of the day sewing.  I've decided to go back to the McMinnville quilt guild on Monday and join up.  Quilting Babcia and I are meeting again for lunch before the meeting.  If I'm going to join in, then I need to finish up my monthly quilt block.  Also, I want to do my block for this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Then, if my sore nose doesn't weigh me down too much, I want to start making the blocks for the True Hope quilt, which was my January NewFO project.  

How are you spending your day?  I imagine we're all wearing out our mouse fingers at the Blog Hop Party and Giveaway.  You can find my giveaway right here. 

And I'm going to link this post to Slow Sunday Stitching.

And also to: