Getting Serious About Skin (and Stress)

I went to the dermatologist for the first time in my life today.

I still have to fill you guys in on the rest of my Spring Break (that will likely take two more posts) after my last update here. Connecticut is such a beautiful state and getting to spend the break with Josh and his parents was wonderful. We ate such good food, did so many fun things, and just enjoyed spending time with each other. While I can’t wait to share all that with you I really wanted to do a post about my day at the doctor first. I’m gonna get real and personal here.

If this isn’t your first time visiting my blog you know from pictures that I am incredibly pale. Its those Irish genes. I burn easily and while my dad always tried to slather me up with sunscreen when I was little and I never went tanning or laid out in the sun to purposefully try and tan, I have had more than my fair share of sunburns. Living in Florida as a child and spending summers at the Jersey Shore and in Hawaii will do that to you.

As a teen I never had a big acne problem so I never felt the need to see a dermatologist. While I was always careful and tried to avoid excessive sun exposure and tried to stay in the shade, I never really worried about my skin until one of my really good friends was diagnosed with skin cancer at 19. I then found out both my dad and my uncle have had moles frozen off their skin and that my poppie has had superficial skin cancer on his face. Thankfully they are all fine but it suddenly made me start feeling very anxious about my skin. While I wore sunscreen when I was on vacation and when I knew I would be outside for long periods of time I was guilty of skipping it for quick car rides, for little errands I had to run, for just stopping for a few hours at a park, etc. I know this sounds stupid but I thought you had to be old to get skin cancer. At 21 you don’t really think about diseases and illnesses. Seeing my young friend having to deal with such a grown up disease really scared me. In January I called to book an appointment and the long awaited day finally came today that I could see a dermatologist.

I’ve always been a bit of a worry wart but these past few months I have felt even more anxiety prone than normal, specifically regarding my health. I’m also an incredibly impatient person so having to wait to see a dermatologist while dealing with anxiety was not fun. I’m sharing all of this with you guys because I truly believe we have a lot to learn from each others experiences. No one has a perfect life, we all have our own battles. I don’t know why I’ve been so anxious lately but I knew that I didn’t want to have to deal with it on my own. For the last three months I’ve been seeing a therapist every few weeks. I am a big believer in always seeking out help if you need it and feel incredibly fortunate that my insurance covers my visits in full. If you’ve never been to therapy you just talk and answer and ask questions with a therapist for an hour. You don’t get any solutions overnight but its incredibly helpful and I always walk out of a session feeling a lot better than before. I think of it as an hour to meditate on my thoughts every few weeks without judgment.

I had my skin check at 9am today and I was both nervous and excited. I was nervous that they would find something wrong but also incredibly excited to finally be told I was fine. Deep down I know I’m fine, but the problem with anxiety is that it doesn’t work rationally. I don’t know how it works at all dermatologists but at the one I went to I first met with a Physicians Assistant who checked me all over and asked me questions about my health history. This took maybe twenty minutes. She circled any parts of my skin she wanted the doctor to look over with me. After her initial exam the doctor came in and started looking at my skin. I feel really lucky that he was funny, patient, and didn’t rush me in the slightest. He let me ask questions and took the time to fully answer them. He also knew that I was born with the funny mole on my neck without me pointing it out to him or telling him. Apparently only 1 in every 100 people are born with a birthmark. He also told me he doesn’t feel it needs to be removed because moles like that only have a 5% chance of turning into cancer during my lifetime. The biggest worry with skin cancer is not old moles, its new moles. That’s why routine skin checks are so important. I’ll now be going once a year.

After he looked over my skin he said I was fine and that he doesn’t see any serious concerns on my skin. There was a mole on my left arm he studied for quite a bit because of its proximity to another mole. He couldn’t determine if it was two separate moles or one. If it was two separate moles it wouldn’t be a big deal but if it was one it should be taken off. Him and the PA looked at it and decided it is two separate moles and that it doesn’t need to be taken off but that I should continue to watch it to check for any changes. I asked if for preventative measures it would be better to just have it removed (at which point it will be tested) and he understood where I was coming from and agreed with me. I’d rather spend the money and be safe rather than sorry. I now have an appointment for mid-May to have the mole removed and feel really relieved about the whole thing. He already predicted the results will come back absolutely fine and that was incredibly comforting to hear.

He also diagnosed the strange little bump on my hand as a wart and froze it off for me while I was there using liquid nitrogen. He then complimented me on taking good care of my skin and said I have way less sun spots on my face than most people my age. I guess I make up for it in moles on the rest of my body!

I took pictures of both the mole and what my wart looked like after being treated with liquid nitrogen because if I was reading someone else’s blog about this I would want to see. They’re not anything particularly graphic or gross in nature.

The mole on my upper arm. They kept referring to removing it as punching it out, which is not a very pleasant image. I’ll apparently have a scar but I really don’t care. I’d much rather have healthy, happy skin!

Before treatment the wart was flesh toned without any puffiness or redness to it like there is now around it. The PA dipped a Qtip into a cup that had liquid nitrogen in it (it was smoking!) and pressed it onto my hand for a few seconds. It felt like someone was pinching me and my hand got really cold but it was not painful. She stopped for a few seconds and let my hand rest for a minute before doing it again. She said within two weeks the wart should fall off naturally and that the redness and swelling will subside.

They also gave me a pamphlet with the ABCDE’s of melanoma on it to read over and use when I periodically check my skin. I wanted to take a picture of it to share with you guys because I thought it was really easy to read and well illustrated. Some of the ABCDE things I’ve read online have been so confusing.

And now I’m just working on relaxing and being happy that there was nothing seriously wrong with my skin. A little part of me is wondering if something will turn up in the mole I’m getting removed in May but I realize that’s the anxiety talking and that I really have nothing to worry about.

I also realize I probably sound a little crazy to some of you reading this. I hope you can see the reason for my openness and blatant honesty. If this post inspires one person to schedule an appointment with their dermatologist (they can tell you from there how often you should be going, it varies from person to person), to start checking and familiarizing themselves with their own skin, to start using sunscreen regularly, to stop using tanning beds (please, I yell at my friends for this), or to start talking to a psychologist if they feel they need to then me putting all my insecurities out there was worth it.

Thanks for letting me share this with you. It feels really good to be so open and honest about something I’ve been dealing with lately. I hope you are all having a great day! I’ll be back tomorrow with more vacation updates! 🙂