Wear your sunscreen!

Over the last few months I've undergone a few procedures to remove basal cell carcinoma from my face. While this form of cancer poses minimum threat and is highly treatable with Mohs surgery, it's not a fun process to go through. I made the mistake of letting a small area go too long (thinking it was nothing to worry about) and ended up having some substantial excavation done on my mug. So much for my boyish good looks...

Best advice is to watch your exposure to the sun - wear protective clothing, pack that sunscreen in your camera bag and if something does not look normal on your skin, have it checked out ASAP!

Good reminder, Jim. I am sorry for your trouble, though. My dad went through many of those procedures, and it was no picnic. The boyish good looks do return.

Get well soon, Jim. I wish you a quick recovery and would like to warn people that it doesn't have to be a brown raised irregular circle. Mine all started with just a red spot where the skin would flake and then not heal. In addition to sun screen, wear a hat!

So, if you see an old lady wearing a silly hat and carrying a camera on each shoulder, say hello.

Jim, not anything to be taken lightly that's for sure. My two brothers and I have learned the hard way also. As teens we all worked as ranchers in the summer sun in So Cal without much thought or understanding about skin issues those many years ago now.
Most recent years we are now paying for it with similar surgeries to the one you experienced.

Get well soon Jim, and as you stated, one should remain vigilant about possible skin irregularities with a follow up doctor review ASAP.

Good advice, Jim. My husband has had two Mohs procedures plus several other procedures to remove cancerous & pre-cancerous growths. He also endured the "blue light" treatment to hopefully kill off a bunch more pre-cancerous cells. He is fair-skinned and worked outside a lot when he was in high school & college and that was before there was sunscreen. He wears it religiously now, though. Good luck on your recovery. My husband's scars healed up to where you can hardly tell.

I had a small spot on my arm that flaired up. Something told me to get it looked at - it was a stage 2 melanoma - the kind that can kill. They got it in time, and took a chunck out of my arm. My advice is to get anything checked by a qualified dermatologist!

Holy cow, Jim! Be well! Glad to hear that you are OK.

I spend a lot of time in the sun (duh, California) but am not very cautious about skin protection. I need to be wiser.

Looks like someone spent a little too much time basking out on Fire Island. . . glad to see you're "OK" and now you can come up w/awesome fake stories of how you got that scar!

- Luke

I'm about a half the time guy for sunscreen. I hate wearing hats (perhaps they rob valuable blood supply to my little brain). This is an excellent reminder to do better.

My Dad has a bunch of one liners that would always make me groan. If I had some a face injury, he would ask, "Does your face hurt?". Regardless of whether I would say yes or no, he would say, "Well, it's killing me!"

So bad humor is better than none.

Jim,
Hope your recovery is a speedy one.
Those boyish good looks will return.
Carol

Thanks, Jim, for sharing this with us. I never thought much about it but as I've aged, I've done a better job of putting on the sunscreen and wearing silly hats. Hey, Patricia and Cindy, we need to form a Silly Brim Hat club I am annually checked by a dermatologist and I highly recommend that others do the same. A speedy recovery and Happy Holidays to you, Donna and your children.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Jim. Sometimes it takes something like this to get our attention. I wasn't so good about sun protection when younger, although I did wear polarized sunglasses during my days as a ferry deckhand on the Great South Bay which saved by eyes from being burned out. I go for the broad-brimmed hat and sunscreen these days.

Now, repeat after me:

"Aye, me swabbies, there we were, backs athwart yon mast..."

I hope you have a speedy, complete recovery, Jim.

Jim,

Glad you got this one taken care - lessons learned. I've got a 3 inch beauty of a scar on my chest from having pencil eraser sized melanoma removed coming up on 20 years ago. A result of countless days at the beach doing "homework" in college.

Reminds me I need to get in for a check.

Hope you heal up well.

Lon

Take care, Jim!

It's interesting that most of us wear sunglasses to protect our eyes from harmful light, but we often forget that our skin cells are sensitive to UV light, as well.

I am one of those who needs to be more diligent about using sunscreen. I wear high quality sunglasses, but I abhor hats and the 'greasy kid stuff' feeling of lotions. However, I need to make some changes; especially as I have aged somewhat.(a lot?)..

-P

Geez Jim sorry you had to deal with all that. Kinda makes you look like the rugged nature enthusiast! Glad to see you got it off in good time and thanks for the heads up.

Jim,

You could have just said, "And you oughta see the other guy" and we would have believed you!

Seriously, glad it wasn't too serious and thanks for the good advice, even if I don't necessarily take it myself. I'll think twice now.

Jim: Did you sign a model release for the pic? May your recovery be swift and complete. >=))>

Wow Jim that is something. I hope you will recover fully from this. Thanks for the advice.

Yikes! I hope you'll get well soon and recover fully. In defense of my name, however, I must say that this is called basal cell carcinoma, not basil cell carcinoma.

Thanks for sharing this Jim. I am sure you will be OK. I see many patients a year who have similar experiences. The advice you gave about Sunscreen and the other advice above about hats and sunglasses are equally important. Of course regular physicals and paying attention to the warning signs are vital.

As you have learned Basal Cell may look like a small bump on the surface, but it is like an iceberg with potentially significant "spreading' under the surface. Fortunately, other than the local damage, it rarely is threatening to the rest of the body.

Thanks again for giving everyone a heads up.

Basil, correction made!

Nah, the boyish good looks haven't suffered Jim.

I would like to humbly throw in my two cents; my wife and I never use sunscreen here in Florida and I spent two seasons as a lifeguard in my twenties and didn't use it either and thankfully we've had no problems. While I'm certainly not saying "This couldn't happen to me", I want to point out that it's better to use no sunscreen than the crap people are buying off most shelves.

You see folks, our skin is like a sponge. That being said, we should be looking at the ingredients which are potentially going into that sponge. It's the same with our diets and lifestyles, which are the main cause of why people get internal cancer. There are some natural alternatives out there that can help protect against the rays of the sun.

Unfortunately, we just lost my mother in-law who died of skin cancer that had spread to the brain. It's a long story but it turned out that she had been on a medication that a doctor told us she shouldn't have been which compromised her immune system [which protects from disease]. There's a good chance that we would have had a different outcome.

Now Jim, back to your thread [don't want to get off topic]; I just encourage everyone to watch what goes on you and in you; that will determine how long you stay on this planet and do what you love to do; photographing the world as you want the world to see it.

Just to clarify and not to scare the bejeesus out of Jim - Basal Cell rarely metastasizes. I have never seen a case. I have only read about it in journals. The skin cancers that do metastasize are malignant melanoma and sometimes squamous cell carcinoma. These 2 cell types are completely different than basal cell. Now that doesn't mean that Basal Cell is "safe". It is not. It can spread under the skin and do a lot of localized damage. So, early detection and early treatment is vital.