*Tanning*

Tanning and The Lies They Lead

It's been a awhile, right?  I haven't written a post recently because its hard for me to get down my thoughts on paper. My mind is moving a thousand miles a minute and my hands are trying to keep up :) I have so much to talk about. Here is one of my experiences.

First, I want to talk about Cancer. Skin Cancer. I hate YOU! I love the SUN! I can't say it enough, I LOVE THE SUN!  - Who doesn't? I even ♥ the smell of SUNSCREEN- You know the baby kind ~

Anyway, right around this time last year I went to the Dermatologist. I went to see Dr. Burr for the close up of my skin (Thanks Again Kami for referring me to him). I have a few moles that I was concerned about and I asked him if he could remove some of ones that were bothering me. Who likes the look of them anyway - I don't particularly. Cindy Crawford can sure pull it off right!. He said insurance will only cover the removal if your moles are bleeding or turn black. Which then reminded me, when I was on Drill Team in High School, my sports bra would irritate and rub a mole on my back and it started bleeding!- I could get that one off. Then I remembered that I had one on my neck turn black one time because B would hang on me around my neck and it would get irritated. My friend Kelli noticed it one day and said that it didn't look so good. Ok, so two of them would come off that day! 

So, they stick you with a needle to numb the area. Thank goodness for my cousin, Kessa, to be there because I hate needles. I sat there and squeezed her hand until it turned blue and then Dr. Burr came over with a blade, with a swipe here and a swipe there.... They were gone. I felt so weird after this point because they have been on my body for as long as I can remember. Wow! That wasn't so bad. That was it...Right? 

Noooo!!!! I asked him to look at an area right next to my hairline on my forehead too... uh, everything ok, Doc? He said "How old are you?" I said "25."...? why did he ask me this? I said this thing right here it just scabs up all the time and never goes away.. it is the never healing skin scab. Under his breath he mentioned to one of the girls "Basal, we need to numb this and get it biopsied." I was so scared. Why wasn't he telling me? What's going on? He just said we will biopsy it and get back to you.. ok great...???!!! That really left me with unanswered questions, thoughts and feelings. That worried me so bad. 

Here is a picture after Dr. Burr took a little off the top to biopsy it, It doesn't even look like a mole nor did I have a mole there. It looked like dry skin that never healed.

**Really quick, I want to talk about tanning now since it'll be the topic of discussion! TANNING CAN LEAD TO SKIN CANCER!!! The summer before my Sophomore year in high school, I went to the local water park, Roaring Springs. I went there every other day if not every day. I loved to go there with my friend Kelli. We loved watching the dive show. We would use baby oil as tanning oil... who knew this would be bad? Everything was fine then! No worries. When you're 15 you don't think about cancer and all that stuff right?? WRONG! Every time I visited my Grandma Frances, who I would give anything for to have her back in my life after she passed away in April of 2011, always told me that you better be putting on sunscreen when you go outside. "You better not be going in them tanning beds either.." "Okay, Grandma.." In the back of my mind I'm thinking "Whatever!" Typical Teenager... She was a nurse in the Army so, if anyone could give me great advice about how to take care of yourself, she would be the best person for this. 

I never noticed any discoloration of my moles or any black ones either so everything was fine at that point. Well, fast forward to 2008, after my Daughter was born, I felt like I needed a little sun back in my life. So, I got a tanning membership and would go every other day. I would do what they call is the triple dip on the weekends when I had plans to go out with my friends. This was suppose to enhance your overall deepness of color and give you a really great tan! I was SOLD! The triple dip is when you start off with the hydration station which is like a sauna, but easier to breath in because your head sticks out and they also put any type of oil in there to help with whatever result you're going for. I then would tan for 10-15 minutes then go for the final step, spray tan. I probably had the membership for a good 6 months to a year and then stopped because it was honestly so expensive for my single Mommy budget. That was all I ever did and ever regret. If I didn't do it though, I wouldn't be here writing this post and hopefully letting others learn from my experiences. 

Back to CANCER! A week or two goes by and I'm golfing with little B and Kody, and I get a call from their office, I'm shaking as I answer the phone, "Hello?" "Hi Breanna, its so-so from Dr. Burr's office..." That charlie brown's teacher voice came over, "wah, wah, woh, wah, wah, woh...BASAL CELL CARCINOMA SKIN CANCER" "WHAT?!!!!" Seriously, ME! I mean come on! So that completely ruined my day, I tried not to let it bother me, but it kept knocking on my head. I called my mom and my dad and let them know about it. I scheduled my removal for two weeks from then. I wanted to get it off. I wanted it gone. I didn't want to DIE! The caller assured me that this was the least worrisome of cancer, second is squamous and third is Melanoma- the deadliest of them all. You are told all of your life that CANCER is DEADLY so you will always assume the worst. At least, I did. 

At this point it was very scary to me to be in this situation, I wanted everyone to be there with me. My Mom, my Dad, my Cousin Kessa, My boyfriend Kody and B all came with me to the Doctor. So I went in to Dr. Funke's office and let me just say she is one of the best Doctors I have come across in a long time. She has the best bed side manner, the best positive and warming personality ever! I highly recommend her if anyone has to go through this. So walking in, there were about 5 other people in the waiting room with me. They were all older, like in their 50s-60s.  I was called in to start the surgery. I was only allowed to have one person go back with me so out of all the people I had with me I asked my cousin to join me. Kessa is my favorite person in the world. She gets me, she understands me and I can talk to her honestly about anything and she will always be there for me. It was so nice to have her by my side. 

So, I had what is called a MOHS operation, in which a layer of skin is removed. After that, it is viewed under a scope and then made sure that all of the cancer has been removed. There are bits and pieces of what I can and can't remember from the surgery so, if you're interested you can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_surgery. 

All of the other people in the waiting area had the procedure done already. They stayed and waited to make sure that their cancer was removed all the way. They were telling me that it is very unlikely that the cancer would be removed all the way in the first swipe. My Mom said " you won't have to go back in again, I believe she removed it all." My Mom likes to keep me positive. :) After waiting about 1 1/2 - 2 hours, Dr. Funke's nurse called me back and said she got it all and was time to stitch me up.  YAYYYY!!!! GOOD NEWS!!! I learned from this experience right here when everything was said and done at this moment on. I would never go tanning again after this! I will always and forever Protect myself with SUNSCREEN and now my Daughter too! Cancer is hereditary! Went back 6 months later for my follow up, everything was ok and healed up great. I do ever so often have a slight numbness of where my scar is from my surgery, but it's not really that bad. One thing that I'm always reminded of what I went through is what I remember both Dr. Burr and Dr. Funke saying is that I was one of the youngest people they have seen to have basal cell carcinoma. 

LESSON LEARNED! 

Thank You for reading. I like to share my stories with everyone so one day somebody will stumble upon my experiences and learn from them.