Being of a very fair complexion, I have struggled all my life with avoiding sunburn during outdoor activities. There was a time when Coppertone was the best stuff you could purchase, but it did relatively little to prevent sunburn.
It wasn’t a vacation if I didn’t come back so sunburned that you couldn’t see any eyebrows or eyelashes (white blonde hair as a child) and my blue eyes looked freaky encased by the lobster-red skin.
Now, several years later, I am paying the price. I’ve had a number of pre-cancerous spots removed, even though I gave up trying to tan more than 20 years ago. Most of the damage was done in my childhood. But I have to suspect that a couple of them were the result of a horrendous burn I suffered from one of the original tanning booths, back in the 1980’s. How else do you explain a pre-cancerous spot on the bottom of your foot?
As I recall, the booths were upright, as opposed to the beds that are so popular now. Time was measured in minutes and seconds. I never got to five minutes. I was sick for two days from that burn, and clothes sensitive for over a week. The only place not burned was the very soles of my feet. Even the inside arches, where one pre-cancerous spot was removed, burned deep.
But, it was the malignant melanoma that killed my grandfather that was the catalyst for my epiphany. The cancer spread to his lung. By the time the doctors figured out his extreme fatigue and lack of appetite wasn’t merely related to his age, it was too late. One course of chemo-therapy was all he could tolerate and he refused additional treatment. He was hard-headed like that. That’s where I get it from.
Even 20 years of sunscreen use and sunburn avoidance doesn’t guarantee success. Over the weekend I was excited to go for a ride on my Honda Magna that I neglected step one – sunscreen. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I was covered from head to toe, almost. I wore long pants and sleeves. I didn’t, however, wear gloves.
It didn’t take very long to figure out that my hands were burned. By the time I figured it out it was too late. I didn’t have sunscreen with me, neither did I have my gloves.
So, now I have lobster-red hands, which are not just red, but irritated and getting more sore as time passes. But, for a few days I can pretend that I’m Scarlett O’Hara, visiting Rhett in the Atlanta jail…
RHETT: What have you been doing with your hands
SCARLETT: Just because I went riding last week without my gloves…
1 Comment
July 10, 2007 at 4:01 am
Don’t die of cancer.
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