Once A Year, Do This

There are quite a few things that happen to a person when you get older. You start to care about health issues that you never were interested in before you hit that magic half century.  I didn't used to care about skin cancer, for example.  Look at my pasty white skin that can be seen from space--do I look like I spend much time outside? I didn't care about breast cancer at one point, either, and look how that turned out.   
Following in the intrepid footsteps of the wonderful and heroic Andrea "I Wear A Cape On Tuesdays" over at Maybe It's Just Me, I made an appointment for a yearly skin check.  I then promptly forgot about said appointment, despite all the reminder text messages and emails my dermatologist sent to me. I did show up for the appointment, but it was on the wrong day.  My brain was embarrassed, but I rescheduled my appointment for yesterday, wrote it down on several pieces of paper, and set a reminder on my phone.  That did the trick. 

My dermatologist is younger than me, to put it mildly.  In spite of his best efforts in the form of a beard and long hair, he looks like he just graduated from high school.  Or Eric Stolz, if Eric Stolz decided to pursue a career in dermatology.  But I like my doctor.  He doesn't lecture me about things that happened many moons ago that I cannot go back and change.  He is in a Facebook group with Dr. Pimple Popper of YouTube fame. I can only watch those videos, and her TLC show, when my husband and son are not around, because they do not have strong stomachs.  Being able to have an actual conversation about the show with my dermatologist was pretty cool. 

The good doctor removed a bump on my nose that had been bothering me for some time, and cut out another spot on my back which was suspicious to me. He told me that he really didn't think that there was anything to worry about, but that they would call me in about a week with the results. Other than that, he was pretty satisfied with my skin care thus far.  He gave me a brief lecture on what I needed to look for to catch melanoma, gave me a sample of sunscreen, and sent me on my way.  Until next year, anyway.

Now it is your turn.  Take care, pay attention to your skin, and go see the dermatologist once a year.