My Last Suntan

by Deborah
(Hixson,TN, USA)

I had a bump come up on the side of my nose, around the top that my eyeglasses would cause to be red from time to time.

I waited quite some time to get it checked out and must admit it was really vanity that caused me to go get it checked out by a doctor.

I wanted it removed along with a few skin tags that I had. The doctor told me he really didn't think it looked like Skin Cancer and even had me sign a waiver in case my insurance company considered it cosmetic.

So when the doctor's office called me and told me it was basal cell carcinoma ( Basal Skin Cancer ) I had to have her repeat this at least three times.

She then told me that I would have to schedule an in office surgery called a Mohs Skin Cancer Surgery. The doctor would then take layer after layer off, which would be sent to pathology at that time.

When pathology came back normal they would stop taking layers off. They needed clean margins.

When I had the procedure it took him four layers to get all of the cancer and it became painful after the third layer.

They had to give me another shot to kill the pain, since it was not really deep but the area was longer than they expected.

Well you can imagine while I was laying there and then even while I was being stitched up and thank god they had someone that did some plastic surgery.

I was thinking about every time I had ever went to a sun tanning bed or layed out in the sun to get what people call a healthy looking tan and regretting it.

The nurse that assisted, told me not to beat myself up because I probably had gotten burned when I was a child when no UV protection was even available.

She also told me, just not to go out in the sun anymore without protection thereby limiting my sun exposure and no more tanning beds.

I promised myself that I would be careful with sun exposure and no more tans.

It has been an easy promise to keep. A tan is just not worth giving yourself skin cancer.

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