On November 27th I went to the doctor to remove a melanoma area from my right calf. I thought the surgery would be minor but it was large enough to require a 15 cm line of stitches when I went back today to close up the spot of skin he removed. I got good news that all of the melanoma was removed so no more surgery required. But my wife asked the doctor how long I should not ride my bike and he said because the incision is on the leg ideally two months but it might be one month depending on how I heal. If the incision had been in my upper body then I would not have missed as much time. Legs are slow to heal.

Fortunately I reached my goal for the year and November but I will not ride my goal of 150 miles in December for now. Hopefully I don’t lose all of my conditioning but it will hard to not happen.

If you are not afraid of seeing blood the photos below show the progress from when I arrived for surgery through today when I left the office.

Around 4:30am on Wednesday I suffered a loss of blood from the surgery site. I went to the bathroom and on the way back to bed I felt my right leg was wet. I thought it was urine but it was a lot of blood. My wife helped clean me up and we added more bandages. Since then no more bleeding. Bless my wife for cleaning up the blood.

God has been watching over me through this and I thank Him for the outcome.