Sherri's Story
I am a red head with German, English, and Irish decent - so my skin is fair with freckles. Eleven years ago I was pregnant with my first son and noticed I had these round patches of rough skin on my right leg. I asked my ob about them and was told, don't worry it is just your hormones working their way out of your body. Okay, lots of hormones, but they never went away. 2 years later second son comes - extreme hormones and 2 small children. Every time I went to the doctors I would ask about the dry skin-spots and they would either say I don't know or your fine. When my second son was 3 1/2 I took him to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles and I remember the whole time he was holding my hand he kept running his fingers over the rough patch of skin on the back of my hand. I asked again to the doctor....was told I don't know.......maybe we will send you to the dermatologist - this was an HMO. Finally, last year we changed health providers and, after a friends convincing, I made an appointment. I thought I was going to be told I had psoriasis or something. I came out of the doctors office with many spots of skin burned from cryotherapy and a prescription for topical chemo. I never even knew there was such a thing! I was diagnosed with solar keratosis, which left untreated, can turn into squamous cell cancer and then travel to the lymph nodes. The problem was that it wasn't just a couple spots anymore, it was hundreds. On my arms, hands,and legs mostly, and a couple on my face.
Since June of 2011, I have had to do 3 rounds of 4 weeks of topical chemo. Luckily, it is not as bad as the intravenous, but by the 4th week you are fatigued, nauseous, headaches, and look like you are a leper. It was hard emotionally, because I had to cover my body from my family, because it would scare them the way my skin looked. My friends would say, don't worry people won't notice, until you see them s!taring in horror at my arms. The way topical chemo works....it kills the bad cells on the top layer and you look bad and then there is scarring and then the potential cancer skin cells are gone. The bad part is when you have skin damage like that there are multiple layers that are already damaged and coming to the surface. Right now I am looking at probably another 2 years of topical chemo 4 times a year. I have too much life to live for my family to not try to fix this. I am an outside person, I love the sun, the warmth, the effects on my moods and brain, but now I always have to be paranoid - which I guess is good. The good part is I don't actually have the word cancer in my diagnosis, but I always have to worry that a trip to the doctor is going to say that. I can't cut off my skin to fix it, but I am so thankful that they are finally making clothes for people with our predicaments. I want you to hear my story so you can be more aware. The biggest hitter is your body in the car and in the cooler months. We don't think about putting sunblock on our hands in the winter, but the sun is on them while you are driving, also your arms. Remember to put sunblock on these areas also, and make sure you have a sunblock that says it has UVA protection of at least 30.
Good luck to everyone and hopefully you will never see my story again and I will live a full long life, just not tan.
Pale Girl Speaks