Paying the price for life in the sun

I don’t know about you, but when I was young, I spent a LOT of time in the sun.  Images come to mind of sunbathing on the roof of my parents’ house (the black asphalt tiles soaked up the rays); slathering on not sunscreen, but baby oil; having sunburns so bad that the skin on my shoulders would peel continually all summer long…

And I am a very fair skinned person – my summers always start off with skin so white, you can practically see through it directly to my internal organs.

But now I’m beginning to pay the price…

I was compelled to go and have my skin checked a few weeks ago after a woman at church was recently diagnosed with melanoma.

Yesterday I visited my new dermatologist to have a ‘suspicious’ spot about the size of a nickel removed from my back for biopsy.  In speaking to others, I am assuming this will not be my last procedure – this seems to be a very common one for people of a ‘certain age’ who spent their childhoods basking in the sun’s glow for hours on end.

Truth be told, the procedure itself was not bad at all – easier than the dentist – and I was in and out of the office in less than 30 minutes.  And by the end of the day, I still had not felt any pain at all (the only part that even slightly hurt was when they used a needle to numb around the area they cut out).  In fact, I had even nearly forgotten about it altogether a few hours later – Mike came home and asked how my back was feeling and I had to take a minute to even realize what he was talking about (of course, I was fully engrossed in a craft project at the time).

Oh – and I was chatting and making small talk with my potential new BFF, Dr. Carbonaro, talking about vacations.  He asked where I would most like to go and I said, “Somewhere warm and tropical like Tahiti.”  He looked at me and said, “Isn’t that why you’re in here in the first place – too much time on the beach?”  Hmmm…can’t argue with that…but this time, I’ll use lots and lots of sunscreen (even if my skin does remain so white that it blinds all the other tourists)…