Here Comes the Sun…

I spent much of my high school years on a surfboard. It became a full-throated obsession during my senior year when the school test-drove a new program called “Self-Imposed Scheduling.” If you were in the top 1% of the class (and by some miracle of heredity beyond my control I was), you could skip whatever class (or classes) you wanted if you had a “better educational opportunity” somewhere else; all without the need for a note from mom or any justification whatsoever. Since I was facing French 4, English, and Math before lunch (and the beach was always calling), Charlie and I self-imposed ourselves to the Huntington Pier most days. Morning surf is best (but that’s for another blog post).

Needless to say, the program — while a godsend for the fortunate 1% — was deemed unfavorable by the administration. As you can imagine it only lasted a single year (I had always suspected that Mr. Hillman lacked any sense of humor at all…).

Unfortunately, all my time in the sun (coupled with a lifetime spent outside over the following years) began doing irrevocable damage to my skin. I didn’t know it at the time — didn’t even suspect that anything untoward was happening, and likely wouldn’t have cared — but the result was guaranteed.

Fast forward forty years or so, when I started getting some pretty funky lesions on the parts of me not generally covered by clothing (or sunscreen — I was never a fan). It started off relatively benign — my dermatologist routinely burned off suspicious spots — but advanced into a pair melanomas over the years; one on my back and another on my nose.

Melanoma is no joke, and while it may sound like no big deal — certainly skin cancer cannot be nearly as bad as cancer in your lungs, or breast, or prostate — it actually is. It can grow very quickly, become life-threatening in as little as six weeks and, if untreated, it can spread to other parts of your body. Melanoma is the most invasive skin cancer there is with the highest risk of death, but it’s highly curable if caught early (please read the last twenty-two words again).

Anyway, I went in last Monday morning for my yearly torture session. Doc froze several small basal cell carcinomas on my head (liquid nitrogen is -320°F which is cold enough to do the job). This was no surprise at all — I’ve been dumb all my life and he nearly always finds something (actually, several somethings) to burn off. I think Doc likes being able to charge a couple hundred bucks for each two-second blast from his magic squirt bottle, but I love him all the same.

But… he also saw a spot on my right shoulder that had the telltale shape and color. He shot me up and sliced off a section for biopsy, and sure enough, it came back a malignant melanoma that needed to be removed ASAP.

So, I hustled back in last Tuesday, they shot me up again (quite a bit more this time), and cut the sucker out. The original “spot” was only half a centimeter in diameter, but this version of cancer is so invasive that he needed to take a bunch of extra tissue to be sure they’d get it all. When he was done, I had eighteen stitches (eight internal and ten on the surface), and a very sore (and itchy) shoulder.

I still haven’t got results of the pathology report so I don’t know if this one is clear, but one thing is certain: I will never — ever — be free of the risk (and fear) of another one of these damn things growing in me… for the rest of my life. I think the appropriate comment here is “If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself.” Or something like that.

So… I encourage all of you to do a couple things now to minimize your risk: Stay out of the sun as much as practical (especially during the middle of the day), and wear sunscreen when you need your fix of Vitamin D (wish I had known back then that sunscreen isn’t just for sissies). Wear a hat. Avoid tanning lamps and beds. Know your skin and monitor for anything that looks different.

And… schedule a visit with a dermatologist. You really want someone who knows more than you do (and what to look for) monitoring your skin.

Did I mention that melanoma is no joke?