Life in Oz isn’t always a big bed of roses. It doesn’t matter what time of the year it is, you absolutely have to wear sunscreen, and even then you aren’t always protected. Following my car accident, I noticed a little black mark that had appeared on my arm, near my elbow, in a place that wouldn’t normally be in the sun, well without some extreme contortionist abilities. It didn’t look like a freckle of a sunspot or anything like that.
The doctor took one look at it and it was coming off. Living in Australia, one of the things that is constantly at the back of my mind is skin cancer. 1 in 2 people get it over here at some point in their lives. That just scares me an insane amount. Not to mention, that the sun also dries out your skin and contributes to wrinkles.
It’s nice to have a healthy glow. You need Vitamin D in your body, which is made from sunshine, but is laying out in the sun everyday really worth your life or the worry it could possibly cause your family? I definitely don’t think so!
I had a punch biopsy. I had some local anaesthetic and the doctor took it out in her surgery and sent it off to be investigated. What followed, was a few days of me being convinced I had skin cancer and thinking I was going to die, all from this tiny mark on my skin which is just insane.
Prepare to be grossed out…
I was lucky that my biopsy came back ok. I have really fair skin, like most Irish people, that couldn’t really cope with the amount of the sunshine vitamin that I was getting which then changed the pigment in my skin to a black mark.
If you ever read any post on this blog, I really hope it is this one. Learn from me and wear sunscreen and not just any sunscreen – at least factor 50!