Perfect Fall Day

It is one of those perfect fall days, warm and sunny, when I should be outside working in the garden but I've developed a fear of the sun now. I can put sunscreen on most of my face but I can't apply it to my lip yet and that scares me. So, I'll just open the doors and windows and take pleasure in the fresh air that way.

If I had to stay home over the winter and suffer through snow and cold, I'd be more upset but I know that in just 4 short weeks I'll be headed south to enjoy what I've missed out on all summer. I'm expecting to be somewhat healed by the time I leave and then will forever after need to wear sunscreen all over my face and lips. I should have been doing this all along and it's not the worst thing in the world, is it?

Kim is bringing me Diet Pepsi after work. I am sort of an addict and haven't been able to get my own for a while now because I won't go into stores or restaurants with this icky lip. I'm not worried about my looks but by grossing people out when they see me. My neighbor, Alison, works at the cancer clinic and sees me every day and when I complain about how awful I look she tells me that my beauty comes through anyway. She's so sweet and so full of sh.t but it's nice to hear comforting words like that.

Friday has become my laundry day and that's about all the work I've done so far. My next job is to clean the bathroom...that will take all of 15 minutes and then I can start working on Marilee's afghan. It's no wonder I haven't lost an ounce even with the difficulty in eating. I sit on my butt in front of the computer or T.V. for most of the day so I'm not expending much energy.

One good thing I have to say about this ordeal I'm going through is that I do have a good attitude about it in most ways because I know my healing will start in a few weeks. I see many cancer patients at the clinic who are undergoing treatment for different cancers that aren't as easy to cure as mine and I know how lucky I am. When I look back and remember how often I sunbathed or just spent hours in the sunlight but used no protection for my skin at all, I know how foolish I was. This could have been prevented if I'd taken warnings about sun exposure seriously but we all think it won't happen to us, don't we? Well, I can now speak with experience and I wouldn't want to see anyone else have to go through what I have with skin cancer. It does have an excellent cure rate but it isn't worth taking chances with sun exposure.

Use sunscreen. Don't bake yourself in the sun. A tan is nice but not if it's covered in radiation burns. No-one is invulnerable.