Fried

A few days ago I had surgery to excise two areas containing basal cell carcinomas from my face. They had appeared as tiny - smaller than the tip of a pencil eraser - scaly little patches that would scab over but not completely disappear.


I had a pre-op interview by phone as I slurped a low-fat cappucccino minutes before boarding a plane from San Francisco to Boston. As I replied with a series of no's to questions about the health of my heart and lungs and alcohol consumption, and tonsillectomy at age 6 to a question regarding previous surgeries, I became confused. I was just having two tiny little rough patches removed, a simple, 15-minute procedure, right? Why all these annoying intrusions into my medical history?


"Are you sure you don't have me confused with someone else?" I asked.


"No, you're the right person," a nurse reassured me. "Height? Weight? Are you a smoker?"

"This is unbelievable," I groused to Juan the Gardener. "They want to give me anesthesia for this." 


"Hospitals are big business," he said.


At a little after 8AM the following day, I was lying on a gurney in a super-sized purple paper johnny, with purple socks on my feet, an IV in my left hand. The anesthesiologist told me I would be given something to help me relax and then some medicine would be injected at the sites, which my surgeon had carefully outlined in black marker.


"But, this is just a little procedure," I protested. "Right?"


"We want you to be comfortable," the anesthesiologist murmured.


"Oh, all right," I said. "Bring on the drugs."


During the surgery, I woke once to hear everyone discussing chipmunks. Someone was patting my lip and the area between my eyes.


"I like listening to you," I heard myself say. "Are the margins clear?"


"Oh!" someone said.


Then I woke up in recovery, dimly aware of gauze and a headache.


Juan the Gardener came in, and gave me a look that might best be described as startled.


"How are you?" he asked.


"Okay," I said. "How do I look?"

*

Mom was right. I would ruin my skin if I baked in the sun. Spring, sophomore year of high school, we lay on the roof holding reflectors made out of cardboard covered with tin foil to our chests and faces, slicked up with baby oil and iodine. Tan was best, the darker the better. Some girls turned brown, but I burned. Peeled. Burned again. Freckled. My friends and I lay on chaises on my deck at home, flipping every half hour like fried eggs, gossiping, cranking up the tunes, drinking Tab and Diet Coke. We wore white to emphasize the glow, spent hours in the sand at Jones Beach, checking our tan lines. 

At home, I'd hold a sunlamp inches from my nose, achieving a swollen, scarlet visage.

"What's the matter with your face?" my mother demanded.

"Nothing," I muttered.

"You know you're simply going to ruin your skin," she warned.

"Mmmhmm," I would reply, heading to the drugstore for another tube of Bain de Soleil.

In photographs taken during the summers in my 20s, 30s and 40s my skin looks unnatural, my smile too wide. At my sister's wedding, I am swarthy in a pale pink bridesmaid's dress. My two sisters look pink and healthy; I look fried.

Years of sun. Decades. I wasn't comfortable in my paleness. What I really mean is I wasn't comfortable in my skin, period. A tan, I thought, made me better - prettier, more desirable, hid the me that didn't quite fit, glossed over the anxiety.


I've had a few basal cell carcinomas removed in the past couple of years and  a squamous cell carcinoma the size of a lemon slice carved from my belly. I've applied Effudex, with results approaching an outbreak of leprosy, angry lesions and all.

*

"Is that something you intended?" the owner of the food co-op blurted when I made my black-eyed, steri-stripped appearance earlier today to buy some bread. 

Everyone gaped.

"No," I said. Then I had to explain.

"Do you need me to help beat someone up?" a woman acquaintance asked.

"No, I'm good, but thanks," I said. 

Suffice it to say, I'm basically done with the sun. These days I seek shade and sunblock with high numbers and I take cover under beach umbrellas. 

I still love the summer sun,  I just don't need to fry.