Wear Your Sunscreen.

Yes, this is your virtual mom talking to you. Put it on. Before you go outside. Yes, I'm talking to you. Even you.

I'm telling you this out of personal experience. Me, the freckled, blonde polish gal, has probably got a spot o' the cancerous skin.

And this started a few years ago. Okay, well I mean it probably started on the roof of my Liberian house when I slathered veggie oil on my stomach in the vain attempt to get the ultimate tan. (wanna know a secret? Freckled, blonde polish gals can't achieve the ultimate tan. not unless some finger paint is involved.) Shirts couldn't touch my stomach for about two weeks after. I walked around sucking my stomach in all concave-like and looking like skeletor.

Then I did the old tanning booth in college. Gah!

But the weird red rough patch on my face wouldn't go away. Now, I've had a weird little mole under my belly button and I carefully measured it and then finally let the doc scalpel it off. (ugh! I felt like I was in a SAW movie! My imagination? It's wild! No wonder I can't go to the dentist without being heavily medicated.) The mole? Benign.

I went to my family doc. He's really nice. Maybe not too accurate in the diagnosis department, but he's nice. He told me it was eczema. A few years, one island nation and three seasons of my house pool later, I went to my friend's dermatologist. My friend and I were all it's probably some sort of icky yeast infection !YUCK!

Nope. the derm took one look at me, with two blonde babies crawling alll over me as I sat patiently in the chair, and she shot me with her liquid nitrogen gun. Multiple times. Then she gave me a prescription for a cream that would seek and destroy all weirdly multiplying skin cells. She was all like, 'you can wear a turtleneck to cover up the red, angry patches' and I was all 'it may be winter, but we're in SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA and I haven't worn a turtleneck in many years' and I thought she was over reacting.

Then the skin cream worked. Really well. Me? I looked like I had some sort of infectious disease all over my face, neck and chest. Turtleneck? I needed a turtleneck hoodie with eye holes, basically. I had to wear high necked shirts to the gym for fear people would run screaming when they saw my sweaty, blistery, oozing skin. Nice picture, huh?

Everyone got the brunt. I had to dress really weirdly. I wore black. I didn't wear anything that would draw attention to the elephant woman I was. Not even sequins. For a whole six weeks. Hubby? He wasn't allowed to even glance in my direction.

Then yesterday I went back. Understanding that I'd have a few more red spots shazammed from my chest. The good news about yesterday? I found the Loma Linda Starbucks drive-thru finally. The bad news? I had to get my forehead biopsied.

My doctor, the effervesent soul that she is, sat down and told me, 'for this kind of thing where you have it is really the best place.' To which I responded, 'Yeah, if I could grow a MONO-BROW!' How dumb does she think I am?? I had a large circular bandaid right between the eyes and a big red scab under it. Kind of hard to miss. I can hear the children whispering to their mommies right now, as I leave Target, "Mommy! Did you see the 6 foot woman with the THREE EYES???"

Oh well. We'll know in a week if I have to have my forehead mined. Grrr..