Sunny Days are Here Again--Go Away!

Being a Californian child of the 70's with pale skin and too may burns to remember, I now know the signs of skin cancer and moles. I burned once so badly that I had 2nd degree burns which damaged so many layers of dermis down that my nose peeled continuously for a whole year. I will be shocked if I don't get skin cancer to be honest. I don't recall ever wearing sun screen until I hit college. My mom just never used it on us kids. My only redemption was I hated the sun and got heat exhaustion and nosebleeds often enough that I wasn't tanning with CRISCO on our ROOF like my older sisters did. Luckily, I went through a Goth phase as well that kept positively vampire-esque for a few teenage year. I was the anomaly in my family. One sister would get so dark, her knees looked like she knelt in the mud. She had a 4-6 hour lay-out routine in the summer. Yep, skin cancer and fool-crazy behavior runs in the family.

So, a while back, too scary to think how long, I noticed my eldest son had an unusual mole on his back. So this mole was pretty unusual--multi-colored, bigger than an eraser head, asymetrical-- and seemed to have all the signs. Yet, I dismissed it because there is no way a 10 year old develops cancer, right? Well, I finally mentioned this to his pediatrician a few months later. I started with "I'm sure it's nothing and I'm being paranoid, but could you look at this." I fully expected the doctor to laugh it off.

Guess what, the pause before the doctor tells you that your concerns are valid are some of the longest, worst seconds a Mom will ever endure. Turns out that she thinks it is something. So today we go to a pediatric dermatologist that specializes in childhood skin cancer. She diagnosed the skin cancer on the ELEVEN year old that had skin cancer on our previous swim team.

Again, in my head I'm repeating I'm sure it's nothing while berating and second-guessing myself over and over about not constantly slathering my son at swim meets in the blistering California sun between events. I'm flagellating myself for allowing even one burn on his fair skin. I always put sunscreen on my kids if we were going out to the beach, swimming outside or spending long periods outside. Yet, I was never good about re-applying after swimming and I never put the daily sunscreen on that they recommend. Fuck!My husband had to have a growth removed a few months back and that was scary enough.

The irony is we now have moved to Seattle with it's infrequent, watery sun-lit days. Worse yet, today, the day of our appointment, we are having the most beautiful, sunny, spring day on a day when I hate the sun more than anything. That's saying something coming from someone who has had Seasonal Affective Disorder, loves the sun, and lived in Fairbanks, Alaska where we barely see the sun 6 months of the year.

Wish us luck! Nothing is worse than worrying about the health of your child.

'lisciously scribed by Scout's Honor @ 11:28 AM