Skin Cancer

When I was young, I knew girls who would lay out in the sun slathered with baby oil. The goal, brown the skin to a healthy glow. I didn’t do that. To me, it seemed like a waste of time to just lay there. I was what we now call a free-range child. My friends and I played outside all day, “out from underfoot,” my mother would say.

My friend, Louise, lived up the street. I would skate up to her house and stand outside calling her name, “Louuuuu-ee-es.” I don’t know why I didn’t walk up to her door and knock, it’s just what we did. When she wanted me, she stood in front of my house and called out, “Daaa-na.” We didn’t have phones, so that wasn’t an option. From there, strapped on roller skates adorned our shoed feet and we would traverse up and down the street negotiating the cracks, humps, and gravel the best we could. The skates we used fit over our shoes and could be adjusted with keys to fit our growing feet. Sometimes we had to oil the wheels and then be extra cautious because those wheels turned more freely when lubricated. And if we lost our key, we’d borrow someone else’s key, because they all worked interchangeably.

That’s how I got my sunshine quota. We never used sunscreen, and usually paid the consequences with all the pain and peeling associated with sunburn. We never worried about skin cancer.

Hindsight is valuable and I’m paying the price of that carefree attitude now. I’ve experienced two bouts of skin cancer within the last two years. My first episode was two years ago when a mole suddenly appeared on the left side of my nose. Then it got crusty and looked like a scab so I obligingly picked it off. It never healed, just kept crusting over.

I finally went to a dermatologist and the tests showed it to be squamous cell carcinoma. About two out of ten skin cancers are this variety. They are flat cells in the outer part of the epidermis that are constantly shed as new ones form. Most commonly they appear on sun-exposed areas of the body and are more likely to grow into deeper layers of skin and spread to other parts of the body than basal cell cancers.

A couple of months ago I recognized that a rough patch on the right side of my nose was not normal. I made an appointment with the dermatologist. When the results of the biopsy came back as positive for skin cancer, the surgery was scheduled and quickly accomplished. The first time I went through this I was nervous and scared about having someone cut into my face. My big concern was whether I’d have a noticeable scar. This time, I had no angst at all and that’s because I can’t even see where the stitches were from the first surgery. You see, dermatologists and plastic surgeons are trained to make minuscule stitches. I’ve done a little quilting and I’ve decided my doctor could be a great quilter.

Yesterday, I had a follow-up appointment to have the stitches removed. This was done by a technician and I barely felt a tug. The stitch line is still kind of red, but I’m confident they will dissipate soon, no more noticeable than the ones I had done before.

I’m more careful these days about sun exposure. I do use sunscreen and when I go outside, I usually wear a hat to protect my face. I haven’t roller skated in years, but going outside certainly helps me absorb that vitamin D and I know I need that.