Tuesday, August 03, 2021

I guess I've popped up with a spontaneous case of skin cancer. I'm fine. It's not the killery kind apparently. 

Quite the shock though. I religiously study every single article that pops up on it. I'm light skinned. This one didn't look like any of the pictures I'd seen. It just looked like a big angry boil that wouldn't come to a head.

It started when I was on my trip. It's in the bend of my knee and I thought the humidity had triggered it.  But when the doctor looked at it she immediately said - oh yeah. That's cancer. 

I'm like I've only had this thing three weeks! And as luck has it - said in the most sarcastic way - there is a skin cancer that pops up in two to three weeks. I will give you guys the name of it when I get it back from pathology.

Medicine is pretty crazy right now though. They get you in and out the door fast. They are cutting things off and getting you on your way before you can even process what just happened to you,

10 comments:

  1. Back in the 90s I had one on my chest and another on my back taken off. The biopsy said there were both bad so the marked around the healed incision and took another chunk. That one was clean.
    From that I learned that cancer is really scary (a 10% chance of the one on my back was fatal) and stiches are better than staples.

    Good luck on the biopsy!

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  2. Thank you Baby. They said I have to go back and have more cut out.

    I was like - cancer doesn't just pop up, and they were like weeeeel. I kinda thought I was being a pussy having it looked at but I couldn't get it to drain.

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  3. Skin cancer does, but thankfully its usually pretty easy to spot if you're paying attention.

    I'm pale pale, damn near red-head pale infact. I wear SPF 75 or 100 depending on what I can get, and if I don't reapply it every 2 hours on the nose I'll still scorch if I spend to much time in the sun. I do tan, but not at a level which most people recognize as such. Which makes my job interesting since a large portion of my summer has me working outside. I wear wide brimmed hats as much as possible, and keep loose fitting, light weight, SPF infused shirts in my locker to wear over my arms for those days. So far no cancer, but yah, lemme tell you I keep an eye on those spots.....

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  4. and ugh for having to go back, but as long as they can get clear margins you should be good!

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  5. I thought I was... but the back of your knee is a hard place to pay attention to. Since I'm light and spent a TON of time at the beach growing up - I'm always looking for irregular edges and things that look weird. This was none of that.

    I'm going to have to look into that UV infused fabric. Thanks for that. I didn't know it existed. The SPF lotion always makes me feel not clean.

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  6. Snark -
    Be sure and have your dermatologist do a full body scan. That way they can rescan you every couple of years and have the computer find any more growths or suspicious spots.

    BunnyGoat

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    Replies
    1. I go in and get a full body scan every year and have since they found the bad moles.

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  7. Do you slather up with the SPF now?

    That girl was going to strip me nekkid right there. But I was like - I just met you! I go back for the body scan on Friday the 13th. Because why not?

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  8. Neutrogena makes a "dry touch" sun screen, which I MUCH prefer the feeling of on my skin. Its not my favorite stuff to put on my skin, but its better than the nasty greasy ones my mom used to try to get on me as a kid.

    There is, or was anyway, stuff you can spray on clothes you already own in order to increase the SPF factor of them. Plus yes, clothes that are pre-treated. The treatment does eventually wear/wash off, I forget right this minute how many washes, on average, it holds up for. I mostly buy it in oversized button down shirt styles so I can wear them over my clothes, and do gentle washes to wash off dirt without having to worry as much about sweat odor, and hopefully not damage the SPF factor as much.

    extra costs and all that, but better than skin cancer!

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  9. That all is very helpful! Thank you. I really appreciate it. I spent my whole youth at the beach, so I guess it's not surprising I eventually got it. we never did the sun screen.

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