13–24 September 2010–Newmarket Gardens Caravan Park, Ashgrove, Brisbane

At the start of September, when Rick visited Dr D (his Dermatologist), two moles were scraped for biopsy, several sun spots were frozen, and Dr D decided that two more suspect moles needed to be completely excised.  Unfortunately, Rick couldn’t get an appointment until 14 October.  This would have been a really bad day, because the following day is when we move to Booroobin to begin the house-sit.  At that stage, Rick already had an appointment with Dr Paul for 14 September.  Dr Paul is the plastic surgeon responsible for removing the last melanoma from Rick’s right cheek.  The aim when we made the appointment (from Perth) was to see if the scar on Rick’s face could be minimised somewhat.

With the additional problems arising, we decided to ask Dr D to refer Rick to Dr Paul, firstly to remove the two suspects, and secondly to follow up on the pathology results from the two that had already been biopsied.  After a little bit of confusion, Dr Paul booked Rick into Greenslopes Private Hospital (day surgery only) for the coming Friday – 17 September.  Dr Paul doesn’t mess about!!  Unfortunately, the results of the two previous biopsies weren’t particularly good, so they had to be fully excised.  That meant, all up that Rick had four moles fully removed, and additional surgery to take some of the slight lumpiness out of his existing scar.  So that’s two on his right cheek, one on the upper left arm and two on his left foot.

Rick heals very quickly (fortunately), and only needed pain-killers for the first couple of days.  Dr Paul rang on the Monday to advise the all clear with the pathology results.  This was a huge relief after the number of surgeries it took to fully remove the melanoma on his face in 2008.  The stitches on his face were due to come out on Friday 24th after seven days and the results of the surgery were fantastic.  Dr Paul is not only a very good surgeon, but it’s very obvious that he really cares about his patients.  Even after only a week of healing, the scars from the surgery were minimal, and hardly visible.

The stitches on Rick’s shoulder and feet were due to come out on 1 October, but we told them we had to be elsewhere then (Millmerran of course), and planned on leaving Brisbane on 25 September.  Eventually between the nurse, and Dr Paul’s attending surgeon, Matthew, they decided that the nurse could remove the shoulder sutures, and I could remove the ones on his feet on the 1st.  I’ve done it before, so I’m not too fussed about it, and the nurse supplied a full suture removal kit, so I’ve now got better tools than my own tweezers and scissors.

We were then able to leave Newmarket Gardens on schedule on Saturday 24th.

Forgot to mention earlier, that we were able to catch up with Stephanie when we arrived at Newmarket.  She’s a long time resident of the park and a qualified electrician.  We met her a couple of years ago as she’s a good friend of Kedron owners Bob & Di.  She’s just gone all extravagant and bought herself a new Jeep.  Charcoal grey, leather upholstery, and all the bells and whistles!  Her site (which was just behind ours) is temporarily rather crowded, with her van, boat & trailer, and two jeeps!  Unfortunately, she was working night shift that fortnight, but we still managed to have some good chats.  The woman is as mad as a cut snake!  She fits in really well with most of the Kedron owners as well!