Skin Deep - When is a mole not a mole?
Do you sunbathe? Come on, admit it, I bet you do don’t you. Even if you say you do it in a healthy way I bet you sometimes forget the suncream or risk it. Me, I’m a factor asbestos girl. I like to feel the sun on my skin but I don’t wear anything less than a Factor 50. I still get a nice bronze glow but I don’t turn myself into a flaking tomato to get it.
I grew up by the sea and spent my childhood summers on the beach barely using any sun screen at all. My skin was always a golden brown and I never, ever, got sunburn. I was incredibly lucky. I inherited the dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin family gene, with the odd freckle thrown in for good measure. My brother, on the other hand, could never go out in the sun. He got the blue eyes, red hair, pale, easy to burn gene. Summer was my heaven but it was his hell.
When I turned 16 I stopped sunbathing for no other reason than it bored me senseless. Whilst my friends spent hours cooking themselves in oil I sat in the shade and read a book or swam, for hours, in the sea. Over the years my skin got paler and, eventually, I couldn’t go out in the sun without using a high factor protection because, like my brother, I would burn horribly.
Around ten years ago my brother developed a small scaly patch on the back of his neck. His Doctor assumed it was some form on psoriasis or eczema and gave him a steroid cream to use. This small patch grew. First to the size of a two pence piece and then a 50 pence piece and it continued to grow. It didn’t matter which cream the Doctor gave him it just seemed to expand more and more, month by month.
By chance he was seen by a different GP who immediately sent him down to the hospital to have a skin sample taken and we all assumed that he would be given yet another cream or a pill to take to get it under control.
We never expected to hear the news that he had skin cancer. I mean, it didn’t look like a mole so why would we think it could be cancer? But not all skin cancers are like moles. Paul, my brother, had a squamous cell tumor. He was taken into hospital incredibly quickly after that and the tumor removed. It was such a large area, by then, that they had to take a skin graft from his leg and he now has a scar that runs from just below his right ear, horizontally across to the centre of his neck, below the hair line, and vertically down to the top of his shoulders in an L shape. It’s a massive scar and the operation was very unpleasant but it was 100% successful and he is cancer free.
Since then he’s had to have a couple of other moles removed too but, touch wood, nothing as serious as that one was.
Six years ago I also had three moles removed. One from my neck (benign thankfully) one from the base of my back and one from underneath my left breast. Both were cancerous, deep rooted and unpleasant to have removed but you wouldn’t see the scars unless I pointed them out to you. I had such a wonderful Doctor who I can’t thank enough.
I may have stopped sunbathing at 16 but the damage was already done – too many years without a bikini top and this is the risk you run.
This evening, in the bath, I found a ‘new’ mole on my hip. I know it’s new because I check my moles religiously. I also know it’s not a ‘normal’ mole because I’ve educated myself and, well, experience has taught me what to look for.
Does it scare me? A little maybe, but I’ll make an appointment with my GP tomorrow and I know that he will arrange to have it removed and sent away for testing, immediately. Will I worry myself senseless waiting for the results? Yes, but I know I’ve spotted it early and I know that this greatly reduces the risk.
So, why am I telling you all of this? Well, mainly because the summer is coming and I want you all to be safe and aware. I’m not going to get on a soap box but all I ask is that you educate yourselves and take comfort in the knowledge that your Doctor isn’t going to laugh at you if you ask him, or her, to take a look at any new mole or blemish or skin change you might find.
Slap on the factor asbestos people, this summer is going to be a scorcher.
