Wear Sunscreen

 

Wear sunscreen.

Wear. sunscreen.

In 1993, I found a mole on my leg that looked scary. When my doc saw it, he said, “That’s coming off today.” Two weeks later, he called me in, sat down beside me, took my hand, and told me it was a melanoma, that I would be having surgery in a few days to remove a large chunk of tissue from my leg, and further treatment might be needed if the cancer had metastasized.

At that time, I had been divorced a year. I was a single mother of four beloved children whose greatest fear in life matched mine--that something would happen to me and their father would get custody of them. Those days... sitting on the couch... waiting for the surgery... were long and dark.

Post-surgery I was relieved to hear that the first pathologist had been incorrect; the mole was really a basal cell carcinoma, and not much of a threat. I started breathing again.

From that time going forward, I stopped tanning my legs, always wore long pants, began using a face moisturizer with sunblock, and I always wear a hat or cap while outside to protect my face and my eyes. (A colleague was diagnosed with melanoma in his eye. He lived less than a year after his diagnosis.)

Fast forward a few decades….

I generally spend August picking peaches off my tree (eating them, freezing them, giving them away) and writing poetry for the Cascadia Poetics Lab's Postcard Poetry Fest. This August, while I did do those things, I spent some quality time with first my dermatologist, then a surgeon. Because, after months of pleading for a dermatology appointment, I finally got one—and yep, I was right, I had a couple of spots of skin cancer.

One of those spots was a melanoma. For real this time.

Damn.

Damn damn damn.

Hearing the voice of a doctor I didn't know say in a voicemail, "Unfortunately, the lesion on your arm is a melanoma, and you'll need to call and schedule surgery right away...." sunk my heart from my chest to my hiking boots. Thus followed a few more long and dark days.

A week after surgery, when my surgeon called to let me know he’d gotten clear margins, that the cancer had not spread and I was free to “go live my life” as long as I see my dermatologist on a regular basis, I thanked him profusely. Then I ended the call and sobbed in relief for twenty minutes.

So now I have a four-inch scar down my arm (which will fade with time, I know) and the sense of gratitude that wells up when we realize that, shoot, this could have gone in a whole different direction.

I don’t want to be sick or undergoing treatment. I suck at that. I want to be writing, and I want to be out hiking (which, by the way, no doubt led to this skin cancer, as I had been covering everything except my arms. Now I’m wearing UV blocking sleeves whenever I am out in the sun).

My beloved readers… wear sunscreen. Cover up. Take good care. Some cancers, as we know, are preventable. Let’s be smart together, okay?

For your edification (and because we’re getting close to Halloween, ha ha ha), I have posted below photos of my arm immediately post-surgery, then as the healing progressed. Don’t feel compelled to look unless you want to.

Here’s to your good health! Sláinte!

Friday

It wasn't cancer this time. This time, I didn't see the look of panic-held-in-check concern on my doctor's face. I did not feel the stomach flop because the word "malignant" wasn't spoken. Nor did I have that dizzy whirlwind of a moment when I demand of myself the answers to a thousand questions, the first of which is "Who will raise my children?"

This time, in a fifteen-minute consult with a dermatologist, I learned about Seborrheic Keratoses (and also about how most women don't talk about it as these are spots which come with aging, and they seem to cluster around women's breasts). Up until I heard the doc say, "Actually, what you're seeing is not even a mole, it's something even more benign..." I'd been taking shallow breaths but trying to remind myself to breathe deeply, walking tall but experiencing brief flashbacks to the cancer scare twenty years ago when I became paralyzed on the couch for days, waiting for surgery, then test results.

This time, I was free. Free to go home, no follow-up appointment to wait for, no hasty plans to spend the day as a surgical out-patient. Free to hand out candy to trick or treaters and smile at the pretty, pretty princesses and the awesome teenage mutant ninja turtles without having, behind my eyes, the specter of my mortality. This time I could rise the next morning and take my dog on a long walk without having to wonder who would take on this blessed activity (admittedly a chore to some folks) if I were no longer around to do it.

I usually don't talk about my brief but scary bout with skin cancer twenty years ago because, well, when I do, I feel more than a bit of survivor's guilt. The original misdiagnosis of malignant melanoma sent me into a tailspin from which I was still trying to recover when it was determined that, no, this cancer wasn't going to threaten my life; it would hardly even inconvenience me. Since then I have lost a brother to the real kind of cancer, the kind that knocks you down for a while until you fight your way back up, demanding to live life on your own terms, not those dictated by the disease. I have a friend now who has just finished his last round of last-ditch-effort chemo. He, like my brother, 'should have,' 'would have' died many years ago. But Jerry, like my brother, has not been willing to go. They humble me with their courage.

Dan is in my thoughts today on this eve of All Soul's Day, as are others I have lost. As for me, Death was nowhere to be seen outside my door last night. Only trick or treaters.