Truthful Tuesday - Wear Sunscreen

"If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it..."

So I went to see a plastic surgeon today.  Let me assure you that it has never once crossed my mind that I would actually be sitting in a plastic surgeon's office.  Like most women, there have been times where I have wished I could change things about my body, but I have never seriously entertained the thought of going through with any kind of procedure.  I don't like doctors or surgery, so that kind of thing is just not for me.

So when my dermatologist's office called and said that the spot on my ear that had already been biopsied twice needed more taken off and I would have to go see a plastic surgeon because of the location on the ear, I almost choked.

Deputy D, on the other hand, was delighted and started making a wish list of other things to talk to the doctor about while we were there.  Men.  That's all I have to say about that right now.

So I am sitting there, with the doctor looking over the paperwork from the other office and he gives me the spiel about skin cancer and freckles and sunscreen and risk factors and I interrupt him to ask just how high my risk factor really was.  He starts laughing and then looks at me and said, "Seriously?"

Ok, yes.  I am a fair-skinned, red-headed, walking advertisement for sunscreen.  I get it.

That doesn't mean that I had the sense God gave a goose when I was younger and was making it my mission in life to get a tan.  I would skip the sunscreen and lay out on a towel for hours until I was burned to a crisp and crying from the pain.

Dumb, I know.  There are many people who watched me grow up that would say that was just one of many idiotic decisions that I made on my quest to adulthood.  But I wanted that lovely tan shade of skin that everyone else was sporting so badly!  I never did get that tan, but I did get several suspicious-looking spots on my body that I now have to worry about on a regular basis.

As the doctor is describing to me the procedure where they will cut off a chunk of my ear and then cover it up with a patch of skin that they will remove from my face, I was sitting there in horror wondering if those years or trying to get a tan (in vain) were really worth it.  I also found out in a discussion with my co-workers earlier in the day that I am the only idiot who does not regularly put sunscreen on their earlobes when applying.

So, moral of the story is... Wear Sunscreen.  In copious amounts and the higher the SPF the better.  I don't care what the experts say about its effectiveness, the 110 SPF on the bottle makes me feel better about the protection level, which is probably a very clever marketing ploy on the part of the sunscreen manufacturers.  Well-played, marketing people.  Well-played.

Little Man normally argues with me about having to cover up with a shirt and hat and gobs of sunscreen before going outside, but once he saw me with my eight band-aids from the dermatologist's biopsies and understood what they were, he doesn't utter a word of protest now.  If only I had been that smart when I was younger.