01/11/2022
2014, taking “progress pics” after tanning -> 2021 after my melanoma removal surgery
I realized that I haven’t shared about this in a formal way, but I felt really called to do so… so let’s talk about it.
I grew up in Florida so naturally I was in the sun a lot. You would think a natural tan would be enough, but myself (and many women I knew) spent their high school & college years going to tanning beds.
I would always see the “WARNING” signs when entering the tanning bed room, but I would scoff “psh… never me”
I really didn’t frequent tanning beds *that* often (maybe a few times a year), but I went for two main reasons:
• because everyone else was doing it
• whenever I had a bad body image day, it was a “quick fix” to feel better about myself
I cringe at both of those reasons now, but that was my reality back then.
The consequences of our actions have a way of catching up to us, eh? 😅
Long story short: I had my very first skin check at 29 years old, last year, because I really started caring about my health BEYOND just what I was putting in my body.
Turns out, I had a stage zero melanoma.
THANK GOD I caught it early. It wasn’t super obvious — even the dermatologist wasn’t too concerned and just took a biopsy to be safe.
When it came back as melanoma, I ended up needing to go to a plastic surgeon (photo number 2) to remove a larger surrounding area on my calf to make sure there wasn’t any remaining melanoma. (It actually took a decent chunk out of my leg even though the mole was pretty small!)
I’m so thankful I had the intuitive nudge to get my skin checked & now I will *always* be a HUGE advocate for skin health.
I’m not sharing this to scare you, so I hope I didn’t. I struggle with my own health anxiety so the last thing I want is to make anyone more anxious.
But what I will say is to see a dermatologist to get a baseline skin check — it may pay off big time 💕
