Another Long Day

A storm was brewing when we got home last evening. A cold front came in and ran smack dab into the balmy 87° heat we had in the afternoon!

Well, I told you it would be a long day and I was right. It was 9:30 last night before I finally sat down to write my post. We left the house at 11:00 yesterday morning. The medical appointments always take longer than expected. While mine was shorter than usual, it’s still a long wait. Mr. FixIt walked around the mall to keep himself occupied. We went to lunch and had Wendy’s salads between the appointments.

I saw my dermatologist yesterday for my annual whole body skin check. I had a melanoma removed from my arm in 2005, so I have to be diligent with my checkups. She was pleased with the condition of my face. I had a yeast overgrowth last year and between the ointment she prescribed and washing my face with dandruff shampoo really helped. I think using an Optase wipe once a week helped too because it has tea tree oil in it. She did notice some dryness and didn’t think the Cerave Daily Moisturizer with SPF was enough so she added Lipikar Balm AP+ twice a day. I put it on last night after I washed my face and my skin sucked it up like unpainted drywall! It feels nice on my skin and it’s not heavy or greasy. It’s over the counter, too. It doesn’t have sunscreen so I still need to use the Cerave.

Aging skin isn’t something to trifle with…especially if you were a sun worshiper who eschewed sunscreen and used tanning beds like I did. I have those spots on my skin that are more than freckles. My mom’s generation called them liver spots, sun spots, age spots, or solar lentigines. Sounds appropriately icky, doesn’t it? Almost all of them are benign. However, you start getting into a dicey area when you have actinic keratoses. These are precancerous and can turn into squamous cell carcinoma. Every time I see my dermatologist, I get two or three of them frozen. Yesterday was no different. I’ve had a stubborn one on the back of my hand that we’ve frozen several times. She froze that one good and hard as well as one on the back of my arm and in my hairline on my temple. That was a stinger!

My skin has changed so much in the last ten years. I have spots on my torso and I told her I am turning 70 in June. I lamented that I had “old lady skin.” She said, “You are NOT old! Those are your wisdom spots!” So just like my rapidly graying hair, the spots threatening to turn my body into a connect-the-dots puzzle are merely an outward sign of my inner crone waking up! In olden times, our elders were revered for the treasure trove of knowledge they carried with them. I say…let’s normalize aging. Let’s revere the elders for the repository of information that they are and elevate them with care and respect.

Saying this now seems to intimate I didn’t care before. I did. But now, it seems more pressing and I’m acutely aware of my short-comings. Let’s teach the new generations how to respect our elders by emulating good behaviors. Even though we are “of a certain age” we still have elders out there…just not as many. It’s never too late to reach back and teach those coming up the ranks to be better people.

So, get your skin checked and wear sunscreen daily, my friends. You’ll thank me later!