Hello, I was diagnosed with bcc on my upper lip in November and had Mohs surgery last week. I was completely thrown by the diagnosis and I can't explain why since I knew the lump on my lip was 'funny' and I feel foolish for not getting it checked out sooner. I thought it was irritation from wearing a mask and it didn't seem like something I needed to get checked out during a pandemic. I now think if I'd gone to the dr before it could have been treated more simply. I've also had to listen to people saying that bcc is not serious and it's easily treated. I do know that but I also feel that it's not very helpful to tell me this as I'm not a person who makes a fuss about health stuff and have been always been very healthy. Maybe I was looking for more sympathy than I received. My father died from cancer in 2012, and my mother has had melanoma so I do feel at risk I suppose and maybe that's why I felt so thrown.
On the positive side the surgeon was very nice and the wound is healing well and so i feel I've had good treatment. I feel a little uncertain about what to do next although I know that I need to be more vigilant in future about getting checked, wearing sunscreen etc. It's good to read about others who are going through the same thing.
Hi freddie and a very warm welcome to the online community
I'm sorry to read that you've had to have Mohs surgery to remove a BCC from your upper lip but that's great that it's healing well.
I've had both a melanoma and a BCC removed over the last 5 years and I can definitely empathise with you on people's reactions. It really doesn't matter how life threatening or not a BCC is, it's still cancer and it's still a shock to be told that you have it. I think also because skin cancer isn't treated with chemotherapy or radiotherapy lots of people think that it isn't 'proper' cancer which can be incredibly frustrating and unhelpful. Anyway, no one here will dismiss your concerns or worries.
As for what you need to do next; I was advised that the best way to protect my skin was for it to be covered up and to only wear sunscreen on areas that can't be easily covered, ie face, neck, back of hands, etc. I decided this was a good excuse to buy a whole new wardrobe of clothes, so every cloud has a silver lining!
Take care x
Edit - Just to add, I also check my body once a month to see if I have any new moles or if any of the existing ones have changed. As I have many moles I took photos of the various sections of my body, ie left lower arm, right lower arm, etc, when I was first diagnosed and use these to compare against.
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
Very reassuring to hear, thank you for telling me 
