by Grace Brentley

Created on: July 11, 2008   Last Updated: July 21, 2008

It started as a spot, not much bigger than a freckle on my right wrist, as if someone had accidentally touched me with a marker, but it was expanding. The border surrounding it became jagged. I dug out an old magazine article with the time-tested ABCD's of skin cancer. Asymmetry, irregular border, changing color, and expanding diameter were all present in living color on my wrist.

I visited my doctor. He was alarmed enough to remove it himself and then referred me to a dermatologist for a thorough skin examination. Few things in life are as scary as waiting on the results of a biopsy. The mind fills with every worst-case scenario imaginable. It was even scarier because I had no one to blame but myself.

I was fully aware that skin cancer runs in my family. I was fully aware that tanning beds aren't any safer. I was fully aware that sunscreen took only minutes to apply. None of this stopped me from tanning, both outdoors and in a salon, for about three years. During the worst phase of it, I visited the salon six days a week with no excuse other than sheer vanity: I looked thinner and prettier with a golden glow.

Now, sitting naked underneath a flimsy robe in the dermatologist's office, I could no longer ignore the dangers of my habit. I was surrounded by posters, pamphlets, and brochures filled with horror stories of sun exposure and resulting cancers, illness, and death. I wanted a happy pamphlet, with a beautiful pale girl showing me the benefits of sunscreen.

When the doctor came in, he examined every inch of my skin and showed me a few spots to watch closely. He lectured me on the dangers of skin cancer and gave me sunscreen samples. Leaving the office, I saw a woman who had obviously spent the majority of her life in the sun. She couldn't have been over fifty, but the wrinkles and discoloration aged her tremendously. She looked like a bronzed raisin. I wondered how I would look in thirty years if I didn't stop.

Luckily, my biopsy results came back clean, but the doctor informed me that pre-cancerous cells were present. I think this warning was supposed to scare me from returning to my old ways, and it did partially. I kept tanning at the salon until my sessions expired, but I did not renew my plan. The only time I caved was last December. I reasoned that I needed a tan for Christmas and purchased a month's worth of sessions.

I wish I could say that I slather my skin with sunscreen every morning, but I don't. I have started wearing moisturizer and lip balm with SPF. I also bought a can of sunless tanning spray, but the two times I tried it I looked like a pale and orange striped zebra. It is much easier to lay out by the pool instead.

The ironic thing is, I became a mother last year and my son has my ivory complexion, which is absolutely beautiful on him. I go out of my way to protect him from the sun. He rarely leaves the house without a full coating of SPF 50. I know I should do the same for myself, and I am working on making sunscreen a regular part of my beauty routine. I try to reason that the damage is already done, but that is a ludicrous reason to do even more. My habits must change, even if it takes tiny baby steps.

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