Scene: me walking into school.
French woman: ‘What have you done to your face?’
Me: ‘Oh, I just had a skin cancer removed.’
French woman: ‘OMG, are you all right? Are you okay? OMG!’
Me: Explains difference between melanoma and basal cell carcinoma.
French woman: Looks relieved, moves on.
Swedish man: ‘What have you done to your face?’
Me: ‘Oh, I just had a skin cancer removed.’
Swedish man: ‘OMG, are you all right? Are you okay? OMG!’
Me: Explains difference between melanoma and basal cell carcinoma.
Swedish man: Looks relieved, moves on.
Russian woman: ‘What have you done to your face?’
Me: ‘Oh, I just had a skin cancer removed.’
Russian woman: ‘OMG, are you all right? Are you okay? OMG!’
Me: Explains difference between melanoma and basal cell carcinoma.
Russian woman: Looks relieved, moves on.
Australian woman: ‘Did you get a skin cancer taken out?’
Me: ‘Yes.’
Australian woman: ‘Can I have your dermatologist’s number?’
What a truly frightening thing to be so relaxed about. I used to bake in the sun as a teenager – using coconut oil and baby oil to ‘add to the tan’. We all did it – but it doesn’t make it any less stupid. And now I understand we are going the other way and Vitamin D deficiencies are becoming more common as we slip, slop and slap with a vengeance.
I don’t think she was relaxed. I think she was just more familiar with it. Actually, I really worry for Europeans living here – I mean the sun is always, always shining and while most people will put sunblock on, they certainly aren’t as fastidious about it as I am. I know they think I’m weird about it.
Sorry, you are right familiar is a much better word. I meant relaxed as in either knowing someone who had a basal skin cancer removed, or falling into that category ourselves. Not immediately hearing the word cancer and thinking chemotherapy and imminent death. Skin cancer doesn’t seem to cause the stomach clenching panic here that the other forms of cancer do.
Ah, right, got you. I think one of the reasons I’m not quite so panicked by it, is because, with early detection the key, I feel like I’m more in control of it. I’m probably a bit over-the-top with my constant checking of spots, but at least I feel like I’ll see it, unlike the other things to which I am genetically predisposed.
Mind you, I have found it to be a little disconcerting and I’ve had a bit of a wobbly-lipped week.
Wobbly lipped week? Down with this sort of thing!
Hope it gets better soon.
Thank you, Helen. It’s just a December thing – nothing that a bit of a watch of Gavin & Stacey can’t fix.
Gavin & Stacey do fix most things, unless someone reading this is struggling with infertility, in which case, probably give Gav & Stace a miss for a few years.
If you get to the end of Gavin & Stacey and it’s not the end of December, there’s quite a lot of Fry & Laurie doing Jeeves & Wooster I can recommend.
Beautifully depicted. During August at Geneva’s annual fete, it felt like we three were the only ones wearing hats and sunblock in the 5,000+ crowd.
Can you buy your sunblock in Geneva?
All your writing about skin cancer is making me paranoid: why don’t I have one? Maybe I do? I know that’s narcissistic, but I think I’m fairer-skinned and definitely older than you.
I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that you’d get one. But you could find a dermatologist. Maybe you need a referral from a GP?
Reminds me of a friend here from California who spent some time in Australia. “It’s the weirdest thing,” she told me. “You know how in California if you go visiting someone, your host might inquire whether you have, say, your jacket or your purse before leaving? In Australia, they ask if you’ve remembered your sunblock!” She found it a bit frightening.
I hope the wound heals quickly and that’s the last of that. No matter what variety it is, having a piece of one’s face hacked at and biopsied does not sound like fun.
Thank you, Ellen.
I seriously do hope it all turned out ok.
Saw my derm this week too. Told her about the white scaly ridge across my nose. She said it was a small ‘wart’ (age-related – in other words, caused by sun damage.) But if she zapped it I’d have a white spot there. Ha! There are so many white, light brown and brown spots all over my body that no one, including me, will notice another one. So it’s been zapped – a very reassuring process, I find.
Warts? Oh, dear. I had some warts on my feet and hands when I was younger. I hated them then and I hate the thought of them returning. For some reason, I find them a bit icky. I got them taken off with dry ice. That ws many, many years ago – like thirty years. It wasn’t too bad, but I think the zapping sounds less uncomfortable.
I don’t understand your posts.
I’ve had several – many? – skin cancers and expect to have more.
5 years ago or so they would cut them out: these days they just blast them with some cold stuff out of a little gun, and they go away. Pffst: gone. Don’t come back.
There is certainly nothing there for people to notice or remark on, even as I walk out of the surgery.
What is happening? What are your people seeing that my drs don’t?
I can’t work out whether your drs are way behind, or whether I am having really, really bad treatment.
Because it was my first one, I wanted to be able to have a biopsy which couldn’t be done if it got lasered off (or whatever is the technical term). He did offer to do the laser or the zapping thing, but I wanted to get all the information first of all. I’m entirely overly-cautious, so I wanted to go that way. I’m very much hoping to use one of the other options next time (Disclaimer: sometimes I hear what I want to hear, so don’t take anything I say as medical advice. Except when I say it’s worth getting everything checked – everyone should listen to that).
Hi,
Just a bit of moral support I know exactly how you feel. I had a basal cell carcinoma removed in the UK after having been misdiagnosed in Australia 2 years before. I just happened to be living in the UK at the time. It presented 2 years earlier as a sore and was eventually carved out needing a skin flap it was gruesome and very upsetting and I know have a rather large scar. It could not be zapped off as previous people have said it was an infiltrating burrowing type GREAT. I was 39 at the time too.
They say 80 percent of damage happens when you are young. I grew up in NZ when sun tan lotion didn’t get used and my mothers hat of choice for me was a nylon gauzy number that the sun shone right through and prior to that a toweling hat that didn’t cover my nose I never had a chance.
I am pretty paranoid now and I won’t tell you of the many many things I Wasserstein asked but one conversation with a big bandage across my nose leaving hospital in a taxi was I hope the other person came of worse I said I had a cancer removed and he never spoke another word to me. Not even in sympathy I have never forgotten it.
I was living away from family and friends except for immediate at the time so similar to your situation too.
All my support goes your way
Best wishes
Ps it was supposed to be wasn’t… Stupid ipad
Your ipad seems to have a particularly complicated mind! Thanks for the message. I do appreciate it.
Oh. Your writing. I love.