The Sun ☀️

The sun is amazing. It provides light, warmth, energy, and natural vitamin D to support our immune system. These are all provisions that God has graciously made to benefit and sustain us. Without the sun, life as we know it would cease to exist.

I remember when I was in my early teens back in Indiana my friend, Penny, had the prettiest golden tan. Even though I was fair-complected, I figured that surely I could have a tan just like her if I would just lay out in the sun like she did. So, one day after we had spent the afternoon in my backyard sunbathing, and just as I was beginning to think I was getting some color, Penny’s mom came to pick her up and said to me, “Elaine, you need to get out in the sun more.”

Later that summer, I stayed out on the beach all day the first day of our family vacation. I walked up and down the Daytona Beach coastline thinking I was going to get such a good tan. Wrong. I was practically burned to a crisp, from head to toe. I spent the entire rest of our vacation sick in bed with sun poisoning. It was the absolute worst sunburn of my entire life. I remember I was sick to my stomach, dizzy for days, and would faint whenever I tried to stand up. It was awful. To make matters worse, after my skin was done peeling, my shoulders, arms, back, and chest were covered in freckles.

I did learn a lesson though: Too much of a good thing isn’t always good. So, ever since then, I’ve tried to avoid overexposure to the sun. I made a conscious choice to stop laying out in the sun and to seek shade if I was going to be outside in direct sun for very long.

I was in my 30s when I experienced my first basal cell skin cancer. I started thinking about the sun damage I got in my youth and started wearing sunscreen everyday.

In my 40s and 50s I experienced a couple more basal cell cancers. I found some skin care products that lightened some of the brown spots on my face, and I also increased my sunscreen SPF to 50.

In my 60s, I experienced a couple more basal cell cancers and a couple of squamous cell cancers as well. At the suggestion of my dermatologist, I started wearing sun bonnets as much as possible, as we lived and worked in both Texas and Florida.

However, the long-term effects of sun exposure, especially the severe sunburn at age 13, and all the years I did not wear sunscreen or a hat, took a toll on my skin.

While most of my skin cancers were removed with a snip and a stitch or two, I had one surgery that took a big chunk of skin from my left temple which required a few more stitches. However, it was my 2024 basal cell cancer, at age 69, and the subsequent Mohs surgery that took me by surprise. It required a bilobe flap reconstructive surgery by a plastic surgeon, and took several weeks to heal.

July and August 2024, Post Op Bi-Lobe Flap surgery.

The scars are permanent but faded fairly well within about a year and really, I try not to let it bother me. I’m really just thankful that it wasn’t any worse than it was.

In my early 70s, I’m currently dealing with routine follow-ups on a superficial skin cancer on my leg that was originally treated with a topical chemotherapy cream. I also pay frequent visits to my dermatologist to zap any questionable pre-cancers with a liquid nitrogen procedure called cryosurgery.

I’ve also cut seed oils out of my diet as much as possible because vegetable oils extracted from the seeds of plants, like canola, soybean and safflower, are now known to not only be unhealthy to consume, but they also increase the likelihood of getting sunburned. Some studies attribute inflammation, UV-induced oxidative skin damage, and a weakened skin barrier to the combination of consuming seed oils and being exposed to the sun. I wish I had known about seed oils earlier; however, at my current age of 71, I’m thankful for the overall good health that God has blessed me with so far, and hope to stay healthy as long as the good Lord sees fit.

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases.” Psalms 103:2-3