Today was for a trip out to see Doctor Sam and there may be things you find annoying about doctors ... but you won't find any of those in him. He told me he started out as a paper boy, worked on a ranch for a while, and did what he needed to do to support himself for medical school. He said growing up hadn't been a life of privilege and he was glad of it. I see the kind of doctor he became and I'm glad he took that route as well.
The decision a month after the biopsies was for additional surgery and he even fetched his latest medical reference because it had only just been published. He looked up the specific, up-to-the-minute, medical recommendation and it was unequivocal: excise the whole area.
That's not as a dramatic as it sounds and it's closed up with a few stitches. I asked specifically if it's ok to play the guitar and Doctor Sam said go for it.
Barring any recurrence in that area, the case is mostly closed. There isn't any need for chemo or radiation because this was caught early enough to have high confidence in having removed all of it. There were two sites, one of which tested positive for malignancy. There is no indication or reason to believe it spread anywhere.
There's yer moral of the story: if you're going to get scared by cancer, do it soon enough that the surgeon still has some chance of removing it.
If you have had high exposure to sun, get thee to a dermatologist and learn the ABCDE of melanoma because the regulars saw I knew there was a problem and I was insisting on a review of the problem by a specialist. You can easily forecast what would have happened had I done nothing.
Skin cancer is not limited to old people. Keep an eye out for it.
The long-time regulars may remember arriving in Scotland after three thousand kilometers on the scooter. There was no interest in getting a suntan and I didn't even stop at any beaches. All of that color was from riding and I was about as redneck as anyone can possibly get. I really was covering up as much as I could but that won't do all that much out on the road.
The stare looks a little weird but, after riding three thousand kilometers on a scooter, you will be staring too. Mister Toad's Wild Ride ... yeehaw!
(Ed: your life is "Wind in the Willows??")
Sure. Who knew I would turn out to be Mister Toad. Everybody wants to be Mister Toad (larfs).
Maybe you're thinking, well, of course he gets skin cancer ... but ... this really didn't have much to do with it whereas growing up in Australia and California definitely did.
The point of the pic is there is little in my life I would change to prevent ever needing Doctor Sam's medical expertise. My friends and I went to Cape Canaveral to watch a launch of the space shuttle. It was spectacular and feeling the thunder of it can't be properly understood unless you have been there. I got one of the worst sunburns of my life but I wouldn't even consider giving up that memory to prevent it.
(Ed: you're not going to throw any Dear Prudence to beg us to stay out of the sun and use lots of sunblock?)
Nope. Well, yes, for babies and kids. I didn't follow that advice for myself and I wouldn't want to give up any of the memories which came from it. The only moral of the story is keep an eye out for the skin cancer and get it early enough so it doesn't stop you from doing yet more irresponsible things in yer twisted life.
The decision a month after the biopsies was for additional surgery and he even fetched his latest medical reference because it had only just been published. He looked up the specific, up-to-the-minute, medical recommendation and it was unequivocal: excise the whole area.
That's not as a dramatic as it sounds and it's closed up with a few stitches. I asked specifically if it's ok to play the guitar and Doctor Sam said go for it.
Barring any recurrence in that area, the case is mostly closed. There isn't any need for chemo or radiation because this was caught early enough to have high confidence in having removed all of it. There were two sites, one of which tested positive for malignancy. There is no indication or reason to believe it spread anywhere.
There's yer moral of the story: if you're going to get scared by cancer, do it soon enough that the surgeon still has some chance of removing it.
If you have had high exposure to sun, get thee to a dermatologist and learn the ABCDE of melanoma because the regulars saw I knew there was a problem and I was insisting on a review of the problem by a specialist. You can easily forecast what would have happened had I done nothing.
Skin cancer is not limited to old people. Keep an eye out for it.
The long-time regulars may remember arriving in Scotland after three thousand kilometers on the scooter. There was no interest in getting a suntan and I didn't even stop at any beaches. All of that color was from riding and I was about as redneck as anyone can possibly get. I really was covering up as much as I could but that won't do all that much out on the road.
The stare looks a little weird but, after riding three thousand kilometers on a scooter, you will be staring too. Mister Toad's Wild Ride ... yeehaw!
(Ed: your life is "Wind in the Willows??")
Sure. Who knew I would turn out to be Mister Toad. Everybody wants to be Mister Toad (larfs).
Maybe you're thinking, well, of course he gets skin cancer ... but ... this really didn't have much to do with it whereas growing up in Australia and California definitely did.
The point of the pic is there is little in my life I would change to prevent ever needing Doctor Sam's medical expertise. My friends and I went to Cape Canaveral to watch a launch of the space shuttle. It was spectacular and feeling the thunder of it can't be properly understood unless you have been there. I got one of the worst sunburns of my life but I wouldn't even consider giving up that memory to prevent it.
(Ed: you're not going to throw any Dear Prudence to beg us to stay out of the sun and use lots of sunblock?)
Nope. Well, yes, for babies and kids. I didn't follow that advice for myself and I wouldn't want to give up any of the memories which came from it. The only moral of the story is keep an eye out for the skin cancer and get it early enough so it doesn't stop you from doing yet more irresponsible things in yer twisted life.
4 comments:
Praying to the Sun God Ra in Cinti might have played a significant part
Yah, there was a lot of that as well. I have a vague idea the earliest sun exposure is the worst but I don't have any serious citation for that. I don't recall any bad sunburns in Australia but there were plenty from teen years forward.
In Australia we were dark all the time so very few issues of burning. That is a seasonal issue as most burns happen on vacation or first of summer
I might have done just a wee bit more to prevent sunburns. The time for the shuttle launch was my best effort, tho. We were out there for hours in the Florida sun. You goin' pay for this, boy.
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