I think I've mentioned before in this blog that I grew up in San Francisco - not the Peninsula, not the East Bay, not the North Bay (till later) but I grew up in The City. One thing you don't think about much when you live in SF is the sun. It's always a bit chilly if you're not shrouded in fog. Warm sun shiny days sometimes seem few and far between and much of it is depended on where your neighborhood is located.
When I was a kid, we used to take summer vacations to Southern California to visit my aunt and uncle who lived in Lakewood. These trips were my first exposure to Disneyland at a time when coupon books where used to get on rides and entrance admission didn't cost an arm and a leg. It was also my first exposure to just how good warm weather felt. You mean I don't need to have a jacket in July or August?
So you would have to say that my family were not really sun people. Lotion is what you put on after you get a nasty sunburn. It's still that way today. My sun protection when I go to Disneyland is a baseball hat, right up until the point in blows off my head going down Grizzly River Run. Sunscreen? What is it? Who needs it?
Well, me apparently. Enter a diagnosis of malignant superficial melanoma skin cancer for a spot that developed on my chin. It was caught early, and should be able to be totally removed in a surgical procedure scheduled in a little less than two weeks.
But there's a lesson to be learned here. Next time I walk through the Disneyland front gates, my face is going to be slathered in sunscreen. I think the doctor is going to insist on it. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?
A skin cancer fact. You are at risk to get skin cancer if you have had a peeling sunburn as few as once or twice in your youth. Uh-Oh!!!
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