I was just re-reading an old post about before I had the radiation on my lip and it reminded me of just how much I've been through with my skin cancers. I've been very lucky that I only had basal and squamous and not melanoma but those first two are bad enough!
I have very light, freckled skin which burns very easily and, when i was young, we never bothered with sunscreen so I had many sunburns. Then my husband and I got a sailboat when we were in our 40's and I stupidly refrained from using sunscreen on cloudy days...I had some horrific sunburns on my face during that time.
All in all, I've had some form of skin cancer on about 10 spots on my face, chest, and arm. The one on my lip was treated with radiation and that was horrendous, not in pain but in the size of the scab that spread across my lip during treatment. A few were cut out or sprayed with liquid nitrogen. And then I had a chemical peel on my face and that was also horrendous. I looked like someone had used a blowtorch on my face!
Fingers crossed, I haven't had a recurrence in a couple of years but there is one little spot on my chest that probably will need a blast of liquid nitrogen when I see the dermatologist next month. She feels I don't need to see her twice a year any more but I'm not sure about that. I'll always have to be on the lookout for suspicious spots and that's my price for not using sunscreen. I've paid a big price already but I've also been very lucky that the treatments seem to have worked well.
Use sunscreen. Point out any unusual spot to your family doctor. Don't bake in the sun!
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