Skin Issues and a Word of Warning

There is a saying that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction...but that is not really the proverb I want.  I guess what I want to say is the every action brings forth consequences.  Sometimes those consequences are good and sometimes not.  We can choose our actions but we cannot choose the consequences of those actions.

Sometimes consequences are deferred for a very long time, so long, in fact, that you can have forgotten the actions.  There are times when we act with no idea of what the consequences might be.  That is really too bad.  I think that comes from not listening to those around us or not thinking things through.

To get on with the story:  my mother died 33 years ago from malignant melanoma.  Her sisters and grandmother also had various skin cancers.  I, myself, have many moles on my skin and for years have gone to a dermatologist to have a "skin check", a most embarrassing experience, every few years.

When my nurse practitioner learned of the cause of my mother's death she referred me to a dermatologist.  I went over to the office to make the appointment in person, thinking an in-person visit might be more urgent to the office staff.  It turned out that this was not the case.  There appears to be only one dermatology clinic in our town so my appointment was not able to be scheduled until March, six months later.

A little more than three weeks ago I had that appointment.  The physician's assistant who did my "skin check" pointed out that I am "very mole-y".  Duh.  I knew that.  He paid particular attention to my left cheek and said he was unsure if what he was seeing was sun damage, rosacea, or contact dermatitis from my CPAP strap.  SO...his idea was to hit the most scary thing first: and thus chemo cream became part of my life.

That chemo cream was to be used twice a day for two weeks until I saw him again.  He saw me last week and laughed, and told me that chemo cream really did its job.  That kind of got my goat. I am a real baby about discomfort and this stuff had caused  swollen, inflamed, itchy, burning, stabbing, throbbing (every time my heart would beat), oozing, and bleeding. Headaches and nausea accompanied all the skin issues.  It was really no fun.  He told me that because of the dreadful situation with my skin he could say categorically that I really had had sun damage and that he believed the 80% of it had been eradicated. Well, yay.  Isn't that nice.

You can see how swollen the cheek is.

He then gave me a prescription for some antibiotic goo to put on my face twice a day plus some antibiotic pills to take three times a day.  The goo being what it was, I had issues with skin sticking to the CPAP strap and to my pillowcase so I would wake up with blood and other nastiness oozing off my poor broken skin.  Eventually I got some non-stick gauze pads to put on between my skin and the CPAP strap.  That was really fun.  Non stick does not really mean it does not stick!  In the morning I would pull the pad off my face and instantly have blood dripping off onto my chest.  So nasty.  Even more, it was VERY unpleasant.  That skin was raw.  Raw skin is the worst.  I can now empathize even more with people who are tortured in various ways for various reasons.

Skin raw after being washed gently on arising. Sorry...I cannot seem to right the photo.

Last night I thought I would sit up on the couch to sleep instead of lying down in bed and pass on the CPAP.  At 2:00 AM I was still awake so I went back to bed.  I put an feminine pad between my face and the strap.  It was only marginally better.

Today I have been holding ice to my face.  That helped a little.  Another 5 days of the antibiotic goo and I am hopeful that all will begin to be back to normal.  At least I am hoping that the top awful layer of skin with finally dry out and slough off.  Without me yanking it off.

Anyway, with all good fortune, before all the quarantine business is over I will have returned to a normal face so I don't scare people on the street.  It really is a tiny bit amusing to see people's faces when they look at me on those rare occasions when I go to the doctor or pharmacy..  Most of them are too polite to fall over in a dead faint...

Now back to the word of warning I mentioned:  It turns out all this was brought on by decades of running the roads in the car without sun block.  I had no idea this would be a problem.  Well, it was.  SO...once the skin is finally healed and whole and unbroken again, whenever that is,  I will begin using sun screen.  If you are not using it, maybe you should, too.