Doctor re-visit

When I get on my PSA soapbox Rick makes the sound of an alarm, sort of like a police car in England. Eeee-Oooo, Eeee-Oooo, Eeee-Oooo. This PSA or public service announcement is because of our recent doctor visit/re-visit. This is about facing facts.

You are probably like us, sometimes putting on the sunscreen, sometimes wearing the wide-brimmed hat, sometimes wearing the long sleeve shirt. Sometimes letting the sun tan us to what we thinking is a healthy looking golden glow.

As teenagers and young adults, having grown up in southern California, both of us spent lots of time at the beach and outdoors. There was surfing, swimming, sports, fishing, boating = all done outdoors in the glare of the sun. As a young child, our parents make sure we have sun screen or sun block on our sensitive skin. As teenagers and young adults we think we are invincible, strong, unbreakable, indestructible. And we think it will never happen to us. And we think we'll live forever.

As we grown older we come to the realization that we won't live forever. We do break and we sometimes are not as strong as we thought. And the healthy glow of the sun is not always healthy.

Rick had a suspicious looking spot on his wrist, what he thought was a thorn from a lemon tree, possibly aggravated by dirt, that wasn't healing as expected. He picked at it and opened up the wound, put on antibiotic ointment and bandaged it. After 2 weeks it didn't heal, but got bigger and sore, and coincidentally we had our bi-annual dermatologist appointment. The doctor could have opened it up and looked for the thorn or she could cut the area off and send it for biopsy, which is what she (& we) wanted. The lab results showed Squamish cell carcinoma and the doctor wanted to remove more to be sure she got it all. So the re-visit. And my 40 questions.

Being involved with a family member's diagnosis of brain cancer in the recent past, I had a very long list of questions. After each question, the doctor would say "That's a good question" and you could tell she didn't mind answering and explaining everything. She said if you had to have a skin cancer, this is not a terribly bad one. It's keratoacanthoma and the doctor confirmed that it can be brought on by trauma, such as a thorn. It also has to do with over exposure and sun-damaged skin, but the trauma caused those crazy cancer cells to erupt. The lab diagnosis confirmed how it presented and we were surprised to learn that it is very quick growing and after a while can "go away", sometimes taking many months. Thing is, it doesn't really go away. And if left untreated, it can destroy and "eat away" the surrounding skin such as your nose or ear. And it can metastasize to the lymph nodes and other organs.

My point to all this is that you should not be out there in the sun without a really good sunscreen. Although we use sun block everyday while fishing, we should be wearing it more often. You should take precaution and wear a long sleeve shirt if you're going to be without shade. We just bought a few 40+ UV protection fishing shirts from Sam’s Club and they will become our everyday shirt. And you should wear a wide brimmed hat to protect your face, ears, and nose. No more ball cap. And be proactive. You should visit a dermatologist who will perform a thorough exam. Please take care of yourself. We are not invincible.