Living Well Wednesday, 4/20/11

Welcome back to another update on my goals for 2011 with Living Well Wednesdays.  Click the link to check out our host site and wonderful hostess, Natalie Collinson!   Be sure and stop by to see what the other participants are up to this week.  It never hurts to send a little bit of bloggy love, either!

Okay, this week has been interesting.  It started off innocently enough, but has gone massively downhill in the last day or so.  My mother had to have some growths biopsied and removed by her dermatologist this past week.  She got a call late yesterday afternoon from her doctor that one of the growths was cancerous.

It is a squamous cell carcinoma, which is not by any means as horrible as melanoma (which ultimately took my Aunt Edith’s life), so that is a good thing.  There is a good chance that treatments may be very effective or even not necessary at all if the places haven’t gone terribly deep.   We are praying for that now.

Of course, nothing much in life is scarier than the “C” word, and cancer isn’t a good thing by any means, but we are thinking positively and hoping for a good outcome.  That’s really all that can be done.

But, again, we are all SO grateful that this was NOT a melanoma.  That is especially scary to me because my coloring is very similar to my Aunt Edith’s complexion.  The main exception is that she had loads of freckles and I don’t have many, except on my shoulders.  But, I am dreadfully pale with green eyes.  Not a great combination, dermatologically speaking.   My entire life, doctors have been keeping me out of the sun and slathered with 50+ sunscreens.  Even at the beach, I don’t really go outside except in the early morning and late at night.  Siesta is the name of the game during the heat of the day and the worst intensity of the sun.  Yep.  I am the freak that stalks the beach at night, looking for sea turtles and watching the moon.  I used to buy my kids the little light up sandals so I could see where they were on the beach at night!  Love those memories.

Lately though, I have developed a pretty serious vitamin D deficiency from being out of the sun for, well, YEARS!  It’s not really practical to supplement to the degree that I would require, so my doctor is sending me INTO THE SUN!  It’s so bizarre.  Here I am, fishbelly white, sitting in the sun with a timer, while my mother, who tans beautifully, is having to stay away from it.  To give you some perspective, people tell me that I am too pale.  I take off my watch and they see that too pale is actually an excellent tan for me and they nearly fall out!

Needless to say, I am a bit conflicted about this new advice, although I do tend to feel much better when I have been in the sunshine for a bit.  But, there is a very fine line between enough vitamin D for me and too much UV radiation.  With my Aunt dying of melanoma, my Dad having had precancerous growths removed from his nose, and my Mom now having a form of skin cancer, I feel like I am playing with fire.

As for eating and exercise, all went well until the last day or so.  Oh well.  At the rate I am going, I don’t think it will be my weight that will kill me first….

Till next time,