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There
are few greater pleasures in life than sailing, shirt off, on a clear,
hot sunny day. It doesn’t matter whether you are a racer or a
cruiser, the highlight of the summer is so often the day when the
layers of foulies and thermals and hell even the LLYC polo shirt can be
banished down the companion way and you feel the warm sun on your skin.
Well that’s my opinion anyway.
If the many and various reasons for not getting on the water during
January were hugely frustrating, February 2009 was on another level all
together. ‘But surely’ you’ll ask, ‘it
can’t be down to too much sun?’. Well it was and it
wasn’t.
I’ve had a mole on my back for as long as I can remember. When I
was a teenager it was about the size of a thumbnail. In the latter part
of 2008 I noticed that it was now a little larger and had changed
shape, become less consistent in colour and the like. Now being a chap,
I’m not keen on going to the doctors. Even plenty of nagging from
Annabelle didn’t get me there and it was only when my brother and
his fiancé joined in that it became easier to book an
appointment than not.
Two weeks later, the first Thursday in February, I was face down on an operating table at Kingston Hospital.
Now I don’t know about you, but this came as something of a shock
to me. I thought moles and freckles were part and parcel of life and
that if they occasionally required removal, this was a simple job with
a scalpel and some freeze spray. This is, apparently, quite right in
some cases but there are other moles where it is not. What I had was a
malignant melanoma.
Words like malignant and melanoma don’t sound too bad do they?
The day I went to the hospital, the people I saw kept talking about the
melanoma that was probably malignant and that seemed fine. I was a
little concerned that all these doctors, neigh even consultants, did
seem to be making a lot of fuss about whipping a bit of discoloured
skin off. When it was explained that they would actually have to remove
the flesh 6mm in every direction around the melanoma (nobody said mole)
I really started to get suspicious and the final straw was the fact
that one of the surgeons took ten minutes over answering all my
questions. This was an NHS hospital where the trust is deeply in debt
and yet they found the time to go into so much detail.
‘Did I have any more questions?’ asked Dr Ahmed,
‘anything at all?’ Well yes, just one, what is a malignant
melanoma? ‘It’s just like any other cancer’ he said,
so calmly that it took a moment to sink in. Clearly he thought that
everyone knows that they are one and the same but I didn’t.
It’s just like any other caner.
It’s skin cancer. Where the skin gets damaged by the UV rays from
the sun, it sometimes fails to repair itself and this forms the
melanoma, which takes over and spreads.
I never had any intention of not having the op, but I did ask what
would happen if I didn’t. The answer was quite stark, these
malignant cells would, after a long time, take over my body and kill
me. This guy was terribly nice but he wasn’t pulling any punches.
So what happened? How did this happen to me? Well as Dr Ahmed explained
it to me, northern European types like me have a skin that is not
terribly well adapted to being exposed to a lot of sun. I’m no
sun worshipper, I hardly ever simply sunbathe and I am never the sort
of chap to remove my shirt unless I’m at the beach or on the
boat, but I do sail a lot and whilst I might use factor eight to avoid
the irritation of burning, I’ve done little more and of course
this mole is right at the spot on my back where you can not quite reach
with the sun-cream. I can not help but think that’s a factor.
It’s is not just about sailing in warmer climbs either,
I’ve never sailed south of the Helford river.
Sailors, and especially boat owners are quite used to protecting sails,
instruments and any number of other things from UV rays, but it seems
that some of us are still only paying lip service to protecting
ourselves. In my case, the cancer had spread to within two millimetres
of the 6mm boundary of flesh that was removed from my back.
That’s the bit that at the time of writing scares me. It had
spread. It wasn’t just a mole; and I had no idea. If I’d
done nothing it would have been months or possibly years until I would
have noticed, and what would have happened then does not bare thinking
about.
So we got to the end of February and there was still no sailing to
report. The boat was all well and good and there was even a rumour of
some enthusiastic crew, but with a dozen stitches in my back the
surgeon banned it. What to do about the blog? Well I asked a couple of
people and the conclusion was I should write this.
I am now on the learning curve about how to prevent it happening again.
Now I know that I’m a higher risk, I’ve got my sexy
skin-tight rash vest and I’ve thrown away the factor eight. A lot
more information can be found at http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=3007#smart but the short had version is, apparently, SMART which means:
• Spend time in the shade between 11am and 3pm
• Make sure you never burn
• Aim to cover up with T shirt, hat, and sunglasses
• Remember to take extra care with children
• Then use factor 15+ sunscreen (sun cream)
This can clearly translate to yachting without too many problems. The
sun is much stronger at sea, reflecting the UV off of the water, so
slap on plenty of waterproof, high factor suncream and keep it topped
up. If you do feel yourself burning then cover up (but preferably cover
up before then).
So once again, a sailingless month. I promise I’ll write about at
least some actual sailing in March but forgive me if I’m now a
born-again hat wearing suncream splashing sailor. Hell, I might even
end up with better, albeit less tanned skin but then I never quite was
the bronzed adonis I wanted to be anyway.
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