A purpose

I am fortunate to have someone in my life who cares enough to care. Recently he said to me, have you had that mole looked at?  I replied, well I ask but no one has said anything and n response I got, well someone needs to. So I insisted to my doctor that I see a dermatologist, he thought I was over reacting and didn't seem to think much of it.

But the dermatologist was glad I came in. Less than a week later, I received a call, you have basal cell carcinoma, what I said, she said "you have skin cancer".  I wasn't sure what to say and she seemed shocked that I didn't have any questions.

But all I could think was, darn I wish I had worn sun screen.

Growing up sun screen was not something we talked about or used. Sun worship was more like it. Not to mention being an athlete I was in the sun all the time. So here it is 20 years later and I have basal cell carcinoma.

Lucky for me, it is the least evasive of skin cancer. And lucky for me I have someone in my life who knew what he was seeing and cared enough to say something. And lucky for me, they went in took it out and were able to get it all. I now have a one inch scar on my chest, almost smack in the middle, but definitely noticeable. I get asked daily, what happened and I explain, and amazingly, people are shocked.

In my day to day job I have the benefit of working with students and when they ask I get to use it as an example of what not to do and how to better take care of yourself. Sometimes it all works out for a purpose.