"Please don't be foolish like me.
Get yourself checked. And USE sunscreen!!!"
-- Hugh Jackman
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| Cupcake with stitches 2-27-14 |
There's a scene in the film Prelude To A Kiss where the Old Man says "Can I give you two a piece of advice? Floss."
It's a very sound piece of advice. But he could just as easily have said "Use sunscreen."
This is all by the way of saying I had to have a chunk of my face removed yesterday because it contained skin cancer.
The remaining crater is as big around as a nickel and goes the entire depth of my skin -- all the way down to the fat layer. It's nice and prominent, too, just above my cheekbone directly under my right eye. I have to go to the hospital today for the plastic surgeon to stitch it shut.
That's one bad thing.
Another bad thing is that I can't swim for at least a couple of months, because of the stitches, and also because the scar is going to be right where my goggles hit, which could totally fuck up the healing process.
Sad face.
The good thing is, it's a highly treatable kind of skin cancer, not the potentially deadly kind. Everybody keeps telling me it's in a good place because after the stitches heal, it'll blend right in with my eye wrinkles. (Boy, they really know how to make a girl feel attractive.)
Plus, now I have something in common with Hugh Jackman. Except his skin cancer was on his nose.
Oh, and another thing they said was that there is a chance my eye will bruise and possibly swell shut. So there's that.
Sitting in the dermatologist's waiting room surrounded by wrinkly, sun-spotted old people with bandaged faces covering craters like mine was kind of sad. I felt like I was seeing into my future. And it sucked.
Skin cancer is not attractive. And it's easily preventable.
Can I give you a piece of advice?
Use sunscreen.
