More medals and today's appointment

Another gold medal!!!!!! Canada wins first and second in Women's Bobsleigh: Kaillie Humphries/Heather Moyse won gold and Helen Upperton/ Shelley-Ann Brown won silver. Whoo-hoo!!!! That was some amazing driving down the track these teams did - what an amazing finish!!! It's the first time Canadians have won gold in this sport, apparently, which makes this win that much more special.

I saw the dermatologist today. He said that the red blotchy patches on my leg are pools of blood, like varicose veins, kind of. A compression stocking would help to get rid of those. Weird that they only show up on the left side, but I'm sure they'll show up soon enough on the left. Sigh. My body is prematurely aging :(

As an aside, this elbow thing was also on the left side. I can't help but wonder if the missing lymph nodes have had something to do with the elbow and leg thing; that maybe the lymph circulation on my left side just isn't up to par, leading to odd problems. 

For example, the left elbow scar had always looked different from my other scars even before it went and change. Ian and I wonder if there had been particles in there or something (causing the difference in colour) that my body tried to reject but the lymph couldn't do what it was supposed to do to remove them, and that's why the change occurred. It's a theory.

The dermatologist looked at the thing on my elbow and had no idea what it could be. He offered to do a biopsy right then and there or to make another appointment to do one if I wanted to wait. I wanted it done right there since Ian was there with me and could drive me home. I'd specifically asked Ian to come with me because I'd hoped that they might do the biopsy and I didn't want to drive myself home afterwards. I've felt shaky after biopsies in the past and it's bad to drive when I'm feeling that way.

The biopsy was easy. They injected freezing into the elbow - it was the same stuff as they use at the dentist, and it hurts the same, too, but it works. Even better, I could see the skin when it was frozen (it's hard to see the frozen inside of my mouth). My elbow looked interesting for quite a while because outside the immediate area of the thing, there were these white lines of freezing. It was neat to see the path that the freezing took around my elbow.

Anyways, once I was good and frozen, the dermatologist took out a sample or two and put a single stitch in to close it. I need to have the stitch removed in about two weeks and then I see him in four weeks for the biopsy results. Stay tuned for results.