One of the realities of getting older is that cancer becomes less an abstract thing that happens to people Someday Far in the Future if they smoke or drink too much or get too much sun or eat too much bacon, and more something that your friends and family are dealing with. Since moving to NC seven years ago, I’ve lost 4 friends or relatives to cancer, count 4 of my friends as survivors. Two more are currently in treatment. And those are just the ones under 60.

So I can only be gleeful that the first time a doctor uttered the “C” word to me, it’s to tell me I have a basal cell carcinoma, no chance of malignancy, and the treatment is an office visit with local anesthesia. I’ll look like a dork walking around with a band-aid on my face, but I looked like a dork all last week after I had the suspicious mole removed.

And I’ll beat you to the punch: yes, I look like a dork pretty much all the time anyway.

I’ve been pretty conscientious about wearing sunscreen after a patch of vitiligo (unpigmented skin) appeared around my left eye in the late 80s. The darker I get, the more it shows. Combined with the freckles that pop out in the sun, I start looking like a calico cat if I don’t slather on the sunscreen.

The damage was probably done in my wayward youth of running around outdoors all summer without even thinking of sunscreen. I always got “tan” rather than burned, which just means that I was slow roasted rather than deep fried.

Moral of the story: Wear sunscreen.

Share on Facebook