I’ll be honest…I’ve spent the end of last week in doctors’ offices, so didn’t accomplish much in the way of craftiness.  I have really light colored skin, and back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, sun block wasn’t available.  I remember I had Coppertone SPF 4 while I was in college in the late ’70’s, and my girlfriends wondered if I was trying to remain the whitest person in America.  SPF of 4, seriously?  Today, most woman are using SPF 15 in their daily moisturizer, and up to SPF 100 for a serious summer outing.

The end result from a childhood spent without sun block, is that I struggle with spots on my skin that are irregular.  I’ve been given the pamphlet on what skin cancer looks like, and my advice to you, is don’t use that as your benchmark.  If you have a spot of skin that seems weird to you, get it checked out.  I’ve had so many spots removed, and many of them pre-cancerous, and one big spot on the very top of my head that was  skin cancer  (I know, you think my scalp would have been protected by hair, but the sun doesn’t stop for hair, it burns right through it.)   I had to have some major repair for that spot, and now there’s a small spot on the front of that area that needed to be frozen…And I had a spot on my face that needed to be biopsied and another spot on my face that needed frozen and one on my forearm that also needed frozen, as both appear to be pre-cancerous.  I’ve had a lot of biopsies, and they don’t bother me, as the doctor numbs the area and removes the spot.  I’ve never had anything frozen before, and definitely not on the top of my head.  The dermatologist warned me that freezing my head might give me an ice cream headache and he wasn’t kidding.  I normally wiggle my toes when something hurts from a procedure, but my whole foot was moving….Ice cream headaches never hurt like that.  I think it hurt more than normal because it was freezing over the scar from the first procedure… But then he moved on to the spot on my face, right above my eyebrow.  It was a small spot, maybe the size of a pin head…He froze it longer than I anticipated, then moved onto my forearm.  That spot was roughly the same size as the one above my eyebrow, but didn’t hurt nearly as bad when he froze it.  Once he was done, the spot above my eyebrow still really ached, and it felt like a terrible sunburn.  When we left his office, I really wanted to put something cold on it, as it was the only one that hurt.  You’d think the one on top of my head would be the one to hurt, as he froze it the longest, but apparently the hair protected my head a little (at least that’s what I’m telling myself.)

Of course I was whining a little and Rich said “Let me see it…”  and when he looked at it, he was surprised at how red and swollen my forehead was.  By the time we got home, I needed an ice pack on it, and within the next hour or so, I had a big blister there.  I’m not talking the size of a pin head, more the size of a dime…and it’s really raised and full of fluid, so I’m worried about it breaking open and not healing.  Yeah, I’m that kind of worrier.  I called the dermatologist today for a prescription refill and mentioned the blister.  They immediately called back and said I should come in to have it drained, so I did.  Now I’m sporting a huge gauze patch (above my eyebrow) and a band-aid (on my cheek) and look like I’ve been in a car accident. I told a man we know that Rich pushed me down some stairs, and he snickered and said he figured that’s what happened.

On the other hand, I had the open wound on my tongue that hasn’t been healing and went for the second follow-up appointment with my oral surgeon.  On my last visit, he’d prescribed a mouth rinse and it works perfectly to assist in healing the spot.  This was the first time the oral surgeon didn’t look perplexed when looking at my tongue, and said it looked like it was finally healing.  He said he didn’t think the rinse had anything to do with it healing, but said he thought it was because I was taking less prednisone (a steroid I take for my arthritis) and that was why it was healing.  Regardless of the reason, I’m thrilled it’s finally healing…  After all, it’s been over six months now, and that’s long enough to have a boo boo like that…in my opinion.

And that’s how my week has gone…some weeks are better than others.

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