Good Day Sunshine

I love the sun. 🌞  It just makes everything seem so much better. 

Being a child of the 60's and 70's, I spent a lot of time outdoors. We would play outside (unsupervised) most days, and spent many summer afternoons at the community pool. Of course there was no such thing as sunscreen. The goal was to get as tan as you possibly could, and there was sun tanning lotion to help you do that. Or, as we often did, we would put on a swimming suit, slather on baby oil, and fall asleep in the sun. You might wake up to a significant sunburn, but it was worth it when things peeled off to a gorgeous, golden tan.

I love the sun. 🌞  I like to go on long walks in the sun. I do wear sunglasses.

About a year ago, maybe two, I noticed a bite on my arm. I thought it was a bite, it was itchy although it really wasn't during mosquito season. It just never went away. Fast forward, I decided it was probably time to have a skin check with a dermatologist. A friend of ours had developed a melanoma on her arm last summer, so that spurred me on to make the appointment. I looked for pictures online of things that looked like what was on my arm, and braced myself for the possibility of it being a Basal Cell Carcinoma, although I held out some hope that it was only a dermatofibroma. 

They did a shave biopsy to rule out Basal Cell Carcinoma vs Melanoma vs Inflamed Dermatofibroma, and I had to wait a week or so for pathology results to come back. They told me I shouldn't lose sleep over it in the meantime, and I really didn't. But when the email notification showed up that biopsy results were back, I felt some anxiety as I walked to my laptop to check and see. 

Basal Cell Carcinoma. Much better than Melanoma. And now I have another excision procedure scheduled for in a month. Sadly, I think my years in the sun have finally caught up with me. I know I'm at risk of developing more of these in the future, I know I need to do more to protect my skin. 

But, I still love the sun. 🌞