The Sins of My Youth

As you all know, I am fair skinned and sunburn easily.  When I was a kid, I just knew that the first trip to the pool or beach was going to cause a bad sun burn but then I tanned (sort of) and had fun in the sun without putting on any sunscreen protection.  Even in college, I accepted the same pattern of burn and then tan.  That all changed when I was told as a young father that I had skin cancer and had several small areas of skin on my shoulder removed.   Sunscreen became my best friend from that time forward and I have been generally pretty careful about protecting my tender skin from the evil sun.  Unfortunately for the last four years I have been going to a dermatologist who has removed cancerous skin from my face and back and have gone through two treatments to remove areas of pre-cancer from my face.  Those treatments, apparently, did not do the job so a stronger treatment was prescribed two weeks ago.  It has done the job and the following pictures should prove my point.  The red areas indicate sun damage and the treatment is bacically destroying the sun damaged skin which should be replaced with healthy skin during the healing process.  I will stop the twice daily medication tomorrow and have a scheduled follow-up appointment this coming Monday.

I am sending these pictures as a warning to all my offspring that they may want to be careful this summer and cover themselves and the kids with a lot of sunscreen.