As promised last week, here are the not-so-pretty pictures of what my skin looks like on my stomach, as compared to the skin on my arms.
Remember..this is the same body, same skin, same person....the ONLY difference is that the arms have been overexposed, burned, tanned, etc., and the tummy has rarely seen the light of day, primarily due to a C-section scar that is NOT the horizontal type of incision. Had it not been for that fortunate surgery, the tummy would have also been subjected to my choice of overexposing my skin to the sun, sans any type of SPF protection, coverups, or anything else that would have slowed down the process of achieving that "healthy" glow of a tan....or as some of my friends still call it..."a little color."
You tell me...which skin would you rather have covering your body? The arm skin or the tummy skin? As my dermatogist and I agreed...the skin on my stomach looks at least TWENTY YEARS YOUNGER than my arm skin.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the SUN is WHAT ages your skin....NOT AGING in and of itself. As many of us do, myself included, we slather on lots of anti-aging creams, potions, lotions, and have injections to "plump" and rejuvenate our facial skin. If the truth be told, had we chosen to protect our skin from "frying" we would be spending a lot less time at the dermatologist's office, getting sliced and diced in the surgical suites, and utilizing other modalities to help "undo" the effects of overexposure to sun.
Truthfully, lots of folks tried to stop me from shaking and baking, 20-30 years ago...but, hey, everyone looks so "healthy" with a tan! I am, after all, a California gal, living on or close to the beach, and one has to "look the part."
On man...what vanity!
Ah yes....let's go get a tan or even better...the tanning booths! (Thank God those weren't around back in the day or you can bet I would have been there, lying the coffin-like device) cooking myself even more.
COMING UP NEXT:
I sat in my car, outside my dermatologist's office, just having undergone Moh's excision of a basal cell skin cancer. Slowly peeling off the bandage from my forehead after my Moh's excision, there I sat in my Miata, weeping uncontrollably.
Plastic surgery closure would be scheduled for the next day.
I looked like a bad version of Cyclops...A huge defect that covered half of my forehead!
The following day, at the surgical center, my plastic surgeon, Dr. Starr, was hoping he would have enough skin for a skin graft from in front of my ears to cover the defect on my forehead. Barely, just barely, did I have enough skin to accommodate the defect on my forehead.......Wakeup call!
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