13 Mar, 2008
March Break Day three? Let’s call it a mixed bag of slime.
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Misc. life
The girls had lunch with Mark while I went to the doctor’s. Almost exactly a year ago I was dealing with this. It had returned again, but worse this time, and I was going to get it looked at.
He prescribed something topical, and gave me some instructions, and as we were chatting I casually mentioned a spot on my forehead. As he turned to look and I could see the fun factor suddenly drain out of our conversation.
“Do you spend lots of time in the sun?”
“Uh, it’s not like I sunbathe,” I said. “I have kids. We’re outside all summer.”
He was looking closely at it, at me. I explained how sometimes I accidently scratch it and it kind of flakes.
“Do you wear sunscreen?”
“Yes, but I don’t think I get it all the way up there.” The spot is right next to my hair. And now that I have bangs, they flop overtop of that part of my head. Besides, who wants sunscreen in their hair?
He told me it might be cancerous. Maybe he used the term pre-cancerous. (Why don’t I take notes?) He dabbed it with liquid nitrogen. (And by dabbed I mean pressed down on it with a Q-tip saturated with the stuff.) It hurt, but I didn’t complain. He’s going to get me in to see a dermatologist. It’s a six month wait. But here’s the kicker, it could be nothing, just plain sun ol’ damage. In the meantime I’m to wear an SPF of 30 every day.
Faaaaak.
I walked around the grocery store in a bit of a stupor while I had a prescription filled. I bought some second-rate sushi and ate it in the car. It was cold outside, but the sun was so hot that I had to roll down the window.
Later the same day we went to our local library to participate in a science workshop. The kids were going to be making slime. The lineup to get in was long. The guy leading the workshop was late. All I wanted to do was get out of there. I left the girls to their slime-making and went upstairs to look at some books for an hour.
The rest of the afternoon was an unhappy blur. There is more, but I’ve promised someone else I won’t talk about it now. But I will. Soon. Let’s just say something has changed for one of us, and that it wasn’t expected.
We had dinner at Monkey Joe’s near Westgate. They make a great pizza, but my mind wandered unhappily.
