Bye, bye beach babe!

I’ve been a self-proclaimed beach babe for as long as I can remember. Don’t let my title mislead you. I don’t think I’m a babe, but I do love the beach! I’m pretty sure my first word was beach or maybe sunshine. My mother, bless her heart, grew up in northern Ohio where the brutally cold winters left you unable to get warm for months. When she finally escaped to the South at the ripe old age of twenty-two, I think she’d had just about enough of the cold to last her a lifetime. Because of this, mom embraced the warm summers like a child given candy for the first time. She took my brother and myself to the beach every weekend for as far back as I can remember. I have a picture of me at three sitting in the sand in my pink and white polka dot bikini. My blond hair is flapping in the wind, something sticky and red is smeared around my mouth, and my bronze skin is glowing in the sun.

Now mom always made sure I put sunscreen on, but by the time I was old enough to put the sunscreen on myself I applied it without much gusto. I wanted that Coppertone tan. I associated it with good times, sun, surf and the lazy hazy days of summer. In high school, we would mix a little Coca-cola with our number four Banana Boat to achieve the ultimate tan. In college, we would lay out the minute the temperatures hit a balmy 70, so we would have a jumpstart for shorts weather.

If I wasn’t at the beach in the summers, I was at the lake skiing, swimming or socializing in the sun. By the time I graduated from college, I had smartened up and started using spf 15 or higher, and by the time I was around twenty-five I had graduated to spf 30 as my regular go to sunscreen. When my cousin’s wife passed away of skin cancer, she was 32, I had a shock and a reality check. I was thirty-four at the time. I started going to my dermatologist twice a year to get an all over body check.

Occasionally, she would see something and have me put a pre-cancer cream on it, but it was no big deal. This summer, I was thirty-nine, and I had finally learned the sun had to be worshipped as an angry god that could hurt you. I took my kids to the pool, but I wore spf one million on my face. Just joking! I did, however, wear spf 100 and made sure it blocked every ray known to man. I also wore a hat, sunglasses and lathered spf 45 all over my body. Let the good times roll! I put my children in spf swimwear that includes a swim shirt, and I lathered them in spf 100 made for kids. They certainly were not the tannest children at the pool, but I know they’ll thank me later.

I felt pretty proud of myself and gave myself a pat on the back for becoming so smart. Then about a month ago, my dermatologist told me I had some new spots. No big deal. They were just a few precancerous spots but she wanted me to have them removed with the newest technology which is a laser.

I really wasn’t concerned because I completely trust my dermatologist. Last Tuesday, I went in and they lasered my entire face. That has to be some of the worst pain I have ever experienced. For six days my face felt like it was on fire. It cracked, peeled, bled in a few spots and finally settled into a lovely pink shade with just your basic peeling. The peeling is almost done, and the lovely pink shade has disappeared in several areas, but I do still have pink skin on a good deal of the left side of my face. My dermatologist tells me it should go away totally in four weeks.

I’ll tell you what, no tan is worth what my face felt like. The upside of my experience is that my skin is supposed to look awesome when it is totally healed. The other upside is that I am saying goodbye for good to my beach babe status. I am now a beach bunny! We’re smarter! We enjoy the beach with mega sunscreen, hats, and protective clothing. We know the hours of 10-4 are the worst, most harmful time to be in the sun. Beach bunnies understand that sunscreen must be applied with a free hand and the application must be repeated after swimming regardless of what the bottle says. Sunscreen must also be re-applied every two hours to be at its most effective.

If you’re a beach babe, I hope you will consider my little story and become a beach bunny. So far, I consider myself lucky. My folly with the sun has not done fatal damage yet. Here’s crossing my fingers for luck!

Have a great day!

Julie Johnstone