I Never Thought I Would Get Melanoma
Did you know 3 million people will be diagnosed with some form of skin Cancer this year? THREE FUCKING MILLION!!
I never would have guessed that I would be in that group. I now realize I could be the face of this disease.
I'm very fair skinned. I had freckles as a child. I never used sunscreen. Did they even have sunscreen 50 years ago? I can remember being so badly sunburned that I had to stand in front of a window air conditioner to get relief. That happened more than once. It was almost always on my back. That's where I found the Melanoma.
But back then I didn't think anything of it. No one did. We didn't know.
Put this together with the fact that Parkinson's ups the Melanoma odds and I shouldn't have been surprised when I found the cancerous mole.
I guess this will be a life changing thing. The mole gets removed on April 15th. Taxes and a two hour surgery on the same day. Awesome!
It's the post surgery that will be interesting.
I now have a dermatologist on my team of doctors. Apparently I'll be seeing him a couple of times a year. I'm checking my collection of caps to see what I'll be wearing in the sun. I hope the Cubs are good this year. And then there's sunscreen. I hear they make a sunscreen/moisturizer combination? Plus I'm going to need to check my body for these yucky things on a monthly basis. That could be fun!
And yet I have a lot to learn....
I'm writing this on Easter Sunday afternoon. It's a beautiful day in Chicago. Sun is shining and about 60 degrees. I'm sitting outside at a Starbucks. The sun feels good on my face and neck. No sunscreen. No hat.
Yep....I still have a lot to learn.
There really is a connection between Parkinson's Disease and Melanoma. Check it out
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