I am unlucky (or lucky, depending on how you look at it) to have fair skin, freckles and blue eyes. Which means I'm in the high risk category for skin cancer. Back in the 60s when I was young, there was no such thing as sunscreen. If there was, my mother who was a sun-worshiper, didn't know about it. Needless to say I had my share of sunburns which has now apparently caught up to me.
It used to be that every six months I would go to my Dermatologist for a skin check-up. She and I would discuss any changes to my skin and call it a day. Until about a year ago when my first melanoma was found. Luckily it turned out to be benign and I only had a two-inch scar on my chest to show for it. But now, every three months, I find myself back at her office waiting for the verdict.
This time the outcome was two small bumps on the left side of my nose. Big difference! This is my face we're talking about! She explained she needed to have a biopsy done to make sure they weren't cancerous. I was envisioning something akin to Frankenstein. I am happy to say that wasn't the case. They are two very small dots really on my cheek by my nose. The results haven't returned yet and I'm still a bit nervous. But I am being proactive and hopefully catching these things before they develop into something dangerous.
Moral of the story: Wear sunscreen.
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