Moira,
Thank you for sharing your story. This is coming from a fair skinned, fair hair and blue eyed Floridian who loves everything outdoors, water and sun related.
My Mom works with a Doctor who specializes in
Mohs Micrographic Surgery . She handles the frozen sections, cutting and viewing them under the microscope.
I have for a lifetime be warned about the ill effects and damage the sun can and will do. My Mom used scare tactics and would bring home pictures of young patients (before they had the reconstructive repairs done) missing half their nose, most of their cheek- or any other gruesome example of what could also happen to me and my brothers.
We were young, we were invincible.. that was not going to happen to us!
.... since then i have been in for countless biopsies, and have had numerous questionable spots removed.
Matter of fact, i have a doctors appointment for a 'once over' in 2 weeks.
My Dad is constantly being dragged in for check-ups as well. About 6 months ago the Doctor decided to biopsy a tiny spot on my dads neck, this miniscule dot turned out to be a melanoma. They had to go back for 8 'stages' of surgery to get it all. When it was all said and done my Dad left with 270 stitches and what looked like a cuban necktie.
I won't even go into the huge process the entire office has to go thru when they know they have to operate on a melanoma.. its amazing though.
The jist of my long story is this- take sun exposure seriously, when you see an odd spot/freckle have it looked at. You have no idea how easy it is to treat at the early stages.
LauraLee