garden news-protect your skin

GARDEN NEWS-PROTECT YOUR SKIN

thats a picture of me several years ago at the country n weedeating
notice i have a hat on with flaps on it and a long sleeve shirt and long pants and gloves

most but not all of my skin is covered


today in 2021 i usually add a mask due to covid to my protect my skin
what i have noticed is that i dont really get  much sun on my face anymore
i also add a wide bream straw farmers hat with a long neck flap attached to it
this does a better job of protecting my neck my ears my nose my eyes

speaking of my nose
thats where  most of my skin damage has occurred
i guess it just stuck out under my hats over the years

over the last several years i was pretty good at wearing sunscreen and wearing a hat
however
most of my life i wasnt as good at protecting my skin

so
i have paid the price 
twice
i have had to have mohs surgery for basil cell cancer of the nose

it started as a small speck that would bleed occasionally 
i knew it was probably a skin cancer

so i went to a dermatologists who sent me to a mohs surgeon

she biopsied the lesion
looked at it real good under the microscope
sorry we need to get a bigger piece
so she took a bigger piece

sorry she said
i gotta make the hole bigger
when she got through 
the hole in my nose was the size of a dime
so
she made an incision like an upside 7 and moved the edge over the hole and sewed it up
it looked like a 7 was cut into my nose
actually when it healed it wasnt that noticeable

since that surgery i have had regular skin checks 
i have a lot of precancer lesions called actinic keratosis
about 30% of them turn into skin cancer
so
i use a topical cream called 5fu that kills the cancer cells
or
if the dermatologists sees them they just freeze them 

i did good for 3 years 
then that small pin point bleeding reoccurred

i went back
biopsy done
its a basal cell again 
cut look cut look cut look cut look 
we finally got it all 
now i have a nickel sized hole 
actually i looked at a picture of the hole recently at the dermatologists office
it looked more like a quarter

sorry the plastic surgeon has to do this one
he said we can either run a flap of skin from your forehead and attach it to your nose for several weeks to cover the hole 
then trim it off
i tried to visualize that 
it didnt sound too good
so
i chose chose number 2


cut another 7 on my nose
make a flap of half of the skin on my nose
likely suture in place for a few weeks
then
go back and recut that 7 flap out leaving it attached on one side
then stretch it over the hole and sew it in place

this one was about 10 times worse than the first time
the scar is worse but not too bad

several weeks later when it was all healed i put 5 fu on it twice a day for a month to kill any left over cancer cells

so far 3 years later i have had no reoccurrence
fingers crossed on that one

so 
why am i telling you this story 
well it could have been all prevented
if
i would have wore a cap or hat while out in the sun 
if
i would have wore a good sunscreen on my face and especially my nose

i didnt
so 
i have paid the price

so
i use a sunscreen with mainly zinc oxide in it
most of those other ingredients are being taken out of sunscreens since they damage the environment 
like
eg
the reefs

imagine what some of those sunscreens must do to a growing child

i wear my farmers hat
i wear my neck scarf
i wear a long sleeve shirt
since covid hit i wear a face mask
i notice this mask wearing also keeps the pollen and molds from being inhaled
which helps my nasal allergies to them
i wear gloves
i wear long pants unless its warm then i wear shorts

so as you garden or go to the pool or the beach or enjoy outside
protect your skin
especially protect your kids skins

its a lifetime of sun exposure that leads to skin cancer

usually basal cell cancer invades locally 
it doesnt metastasize

squamous skin cancer can metastasize 
eg
an acquaintance got recurring squamous cell skin cancer on their scalp
it kept reoccurring
even with mohs surgery
theirs metastasized to their neck
the treatment was a neck dissection followed by radiation treatments followed by chemotherapy 

melanoma is the bad skin cancer
it metastasizes  more aggressively 

if caught early its curable
if not it may not be curable

so
protect your skin and your kids skin
but
enjoy the outdoors while you do

the organicgreen doctor