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Once upon a time, no one got skin cancer – some people also believed that the Earth was flat.

You may think leading off with such a sarcastic remark is inappropriate, but when you need to share something ominous that doesn’t look ominous, painful that doesn’t look painful, and as life threatening as skin cancer is, you open with a shocker.

Patience Is a Virtue, So Skin Cancer Must Be Virtuous (Um, Nope)

When thinking about cancer, most people rarely give it a thought until it touches them or someone they love directly. Before that awareness occurs, skin cancer is invisible, theoretical, and a scare tactic advertisers use to prevent young people from tanning outdoors or in without sunscreen. In 2017, my own bout with basal cell carcinoma (BCC) – the friendliest, or at least most curable form of skin cancer – revealed that not only is sunscreen worth applying but that cancer is patient. Spoiler: What you do today might not be of much consequence now, but it may find you down the road and kick your ass.

Basal cell carcinoma post-surgery 2017 – pretty, huh?

Getting Up Close, Personal, and Too Comfortable

After my BCC surgery, I became a pro at performing my own skin checks and faithfully dropping trow in front of my gorgeous physician’s assistant at my yearly follow-up appointments. After multiple biopsies on most of my toes and other public and private parts (T and A, baby) as well as the associated suture removal procedures (and the 14 days in between where my brain went completely batty), I remained cancer-free … for slightly more than two years.

During a full-body skin check, your dermatologist literally maps every marking on your body from head to toe.

In August 2019, the “snakebite” mole twins we’d “watched” in 2017 and scanned with the MelaFind in 2018 looked distressingly more ominous to Claudia when viewed through her DermLite dermatoscope. “I don’t like this one,” she said, “it’s coming off.”

Pre-biopsy photo – mole is smaller than the tip of a cotton swab, uniformly dark, and flat

Since my PA did a punch biopsy on one mole but left the other behind, I didn’t worry until her office called to schedule an immediate appointment WITHOUT giving me my results over the phone. Spoiler: They will never tell you that you have cancer over the phone.

As I sat waiting in that cold, familiar room the next afternoon with a tri-fold brochure from the information rack in my hand, the words MALIGNANT MELANOMA facing outward, Claudia entered, nodded, and all hell broke loose.

Patient Referral to General Oncology Surgery ***STAT***

After a biopsy, a pathology lab reports the findings back to your doctor. My 5mm punch biopsy report included the words, “Malignant melanoma with extension to the papillary dermis, Clark’s Level II,” “atypical,” and “abundant,” but seeing this sentence was where real became really scary: “cells within the nests have lost cohesion.”

I learned from Claudia and more than a little research that Clark’s staging measures the depth of the melanoma. In my case, the biopsy showed that the cancer had spread vertically beyond the upper layer of the skin (the epidermis) into the papillary dermis (top of the dermis). “Not too bad,” said my brain. “Stage two out of a possible five.”

But here’s something you should know – the Clark staging method, while still commonly utilized by pathology testing facilities is outdated. The American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging system is the most current method of staging skin cancer. In people-speak, AJCC considers the “tumor, node, metastasis (TMN) scores and other prognostic factors” when assigning a stage.

City of Hope is the best!

Wide-Awake with K-Pop In the Background

Nine days after meeting with an oncological surgeon at City of Hope, I was scheduled for a wide local excision under local sedation. Most patients prefer general sedation because they’re asleep during the procedure, but I opted to remain awake because I’m stubborn and cheap and didn’t want to hire a private driver or burden a friend with chauffeuring me around since my husband can no longer drive due to MS. FYI: Go with the general! Anesthetizing more than a half inch below the skin’s surface requires a truckload of drug, and it hurt worse than anything I’ve experienced in my entire life.

Why is this bandage so big?

A 45-Minute Procedure Turned Into 90

Once the anesthesia kicked in, the team and I had a delightful conversation about BTS, BLACKPINK, and EXO. This is the only upside to being awake during surgery; they let you pick the music. As my surgeon worked, the scope of the surgery changed slightly, requiring deeper tissue removal, which is why I now have a small depression in the center of my scar. My leg was crazy numb (thankfully), and I had a prescription for hydrocodone (Norco), which I took until the bottle was empty. This f*cker hurt for a solid week!

Even Sandy looks frightened by the aftermath!

Some Dos and Don’ts That You Should Consider

Once you’ve been diagnosed with melanoma, you need frequent follow-up checks. I now see Claudia every 90 days and must do so through October 2022. For the three years after that (October 2025), I’ll still need to have a skin check every six months.

Since the day of the surgery, I’ve had 13 additional biopsies, an extra excision after one biopsy came back pre-melanoma, and all cells were deemed atypical but with clear margins around them. Hearing those two words – “clear margins” – feels (I imagine) like being blessed by the pope.

With every breath I take, I want you to avoid this process. You can do that by:

• Wearing sunscreen every day, even indoors since UVA light penetrates glass
• Avoid tanning beds at all costs
• Start looking really closely at your skin – all of it – and have someone you love check out the hard-to-reach places. (TMI: I never knew I had a mole/freckle near my butt crack, but my husband did. It’s gone now, and he misses it.)
• Stock your skincare emergency kit with healing ingredients to use on your scar after your doctor gives you the green light to do so. I passionately believe that using COSRX Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence, PURITO Centella Green Level Buffet Serum, vitamin C serum, and Eco Your Skin’s Meso Ampoule have left my slightly disfigured calf in far better condition than any OTC or prescription anti-scar product ever would.

The truth today – 14 months post-surgery

Surgical scar plus biopsy scar near the top center and another one lower left

Thanks for wading through the entire story. If you have questions, please leave a comment or follow me on either of my Beautytap profiles. Visit the American Cancer Society’s page to see images of different types of skin cancer, and make a skin check appointment no matter what condition your skin is in. Sometimes, the most benign-looking spot can be deadly.

Back in my younger days, I was an avid hiker and backpacker. I didn’t come by the habit naturally. No, I was dating Huckleberry Finn, and he thought the wilderness was the be all and end all pinnacle of relaxation. Screech!

Thankfully, when asked what he thought of camping, my fabulous husband responded thoughtfully by saying, “You mean, like the lobby of the Marriott?” Way right answer!

I get that there are times when the notion of dropping off the grid and heading off the beaten path seem like the only way to hear yourself think. But have you ever tried to meditate in a house without forced heat? I’ve done it, and the romance is way overrated.

Today, my husband and I live in a small mountain community that many refer to as a “resort community.” In mountain speak, that means we have tourists in the summer, and nature provides everything remotely associated with entertainment. Before you decide to pack it all up and head out to your cabin in the woods, let me fill you in on what we’ve learned by living in ours.

Privacy? You Don’t Have No Stinkin’ Privacy.

When you live where there are no street lights, no food delivery, and no postal delivery, you spend a large amount of time (during the day, mind you) in public places. Grocery stores are gossip hubs, and picking up your mail requires a certain degree of willingness to make small talk with, well, pretty much everyone. The mailmen at our local branch know our shopping habits as well as our schedules. And while that seems only minimally invasive, it’s hard to get away with saying, “I’m shopping for the neighbors” more than once a quarter.

Everyone Wants You…at First.

If you’re the new kids in town, your dance card will be overflowing with offers from the neighbors. You see, the wilderness is fraught with danger. Power outages mean no internet connection. Windy autumn weather brings the omnipresent danger of forest fires, and during the winter you’re bound to have to call a tow truck for the teenager up the street when his car hits the ice and careens into your power pole. The mountain, in many ways, has its own social ecosystem, too. You have to engage with it because your neighbors may be your only option in an emergency (like when you run out of firewood…or tequila).

You’ll Still Need to Answer to the Law

Probably the biggest misnomer when it comes to life in a small rural town is the absurd notion that “no one’s lookin.’” We don’t have a whole lot of stop signs up here, but we have plenty of intersections and residents that seem to think that the rules they learned to get their license no longer apply. Your little town may lack a large police presence, but if you do seriously wrong, your neighbors will turn you in…and share it on Facebook.

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As a final thought, my husband and I are completely happy with the things we’ve given up to have the life we have here. As writers, we’re pretty insulated (and being locked down during COVID-19 really hasn’t changed us much). Once you tell someone you write for a living, they’re far less inclined to share much about themselves for fear of being publicly outed. So, now, come to think of it, just pack up your car, head to the woods, and tell folks you’re a writer. They’ll leave you alone…most of the time.

Think back to high school, if you dare. It’s Friday night, and you and your newest sweetheart head to the theater for the latest horror movie (probably A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, or Friday the 13^th). Back then, those movies gave us a chance to be temporarily frightened of things we knew weren’t real (or hoped weren’t). And, okay, it was also an excuse to get a little more familiar with the hands, shoulders, etc. of our dates. What made those movies great was that it was all in fun. But what about real horror? At some point, we outgrew horror films because life itself became more terrifying. And frankly, it gets more so every day.

The “Nightmare” on Your Street

In 1984, Freddie Krueger came after us in our sleep. But in 2017, A Nightmare on Elm Street has a new address…anywhere the IRS, Franchise Tax Board, or court system can serve us with an audit request or command our appearance for jury duty. Unlike Krueger, the tax man cometh any time he wants. And while we can wake from a bad dream and shake it off, an audit can feel like a medical procedure without anesthesia, leaving us begging to die (metaphorically). Score one for adulthood.

Michael Myers aka Your Mortgage Lender

Halloween continues to make some of us laugh because, if we watched (and listened) closely, we intuitively learned that having sex in our parents’ bed would lead to no good (or the pointy end of a gardening tool). Michael Myers was faceless and scared us right out of our homes. Sounds a bit like your local mortgage lender, eh? Today, our homes represent safety, permanence, and accomplishment. And with that picket fence came a mortgage the likes our parents can’t comprehend. Refinancing or taking out a second mortgage is tantamount to Hollywood horror…and you can’t write that stuff.

Why Jason Never Retired

Friday the 13^th came hot on the heels of Halloween, and taught us, once again, that you never leave a bad guy for dead. He always manages to survive. “Jason,” it seems, had no interest in retiring from the horror movie biz, and perhaps that’s the one thing that scares our generation the most: retirement. It’s the uncertainty. Will we have enough money? What will we do with our time? What if we want to reenter the work force in a different capacity? Will they take us in? Welcome us with open arms? There’s a lot of unknowns in that plotline, and so we make “bucket lists” and IRA contributions and hope we figure it out before “Jason” shows up to escort us to the other side.

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Ultimately, the fears we had were far smaller (and simpler) than those we face today. Don’t believe me? Ask a young(er) person what he or she fears most. The answer probably won’t surprise you.

Let’s face it. Thanks to COVID-19, mandatory self-isolation, and social distancing, there’s more bad news than good lately, and it’s taking a toll on all of us. Experts say we need to find healthy ways to manage stress while safely sheltering at home, but that’s a lot easier said than done.

If you can’t go to the gym or live in close quarters with a family, how are you supposed to tune out the news of the day? Believe it or not, you can learn to mentally calm yourself without lighting candles or sitting on a meditation pillow in a dark room. I’m talking about conscious meditation or mindfulness, and learning how to do it is simpler than you might think.

Back when I was a college student, I struggled to find ways to release the world’s grasp on my attention span, so I embarked on a mission to chill before imploding. As a writer, I’m more sponge than Teflon, so I sought help from an unlikely source: the local monks at the Mount Baldy Zen Center. “Meditation,” I thought, “that seems easy enough.” Ha! That first go was rough, but what I learned has served me well for more than three decades and may be of value to you, too.

True Seated Meditation Is Hard – Zazen unites the body, the breath, and the consciousness. I won’t lie. Just sitting still continues to be a challenge for me, and that half-lotus position (think sitting cross-legged on the floor with one foot on top of the opposing thigh) is more nerve-wracking than nirvana. FYI, while you may not truly be able to release your thoughts and cares while meditating, you will experience a renewed sense of appreciation for the flexible child you once were.

Walking Meditation Is a Real Thing – If seated meditation fails to calm your mind and leaves you cranky and frustrated, take a walk. Literally. Aim to coordinate your breath with your footsteps while appreciating the crispness of the air, the scent of the earth, and the forgiveness of its surface. You don’t even need to be on a quiet street or mountain trail to feel yourself aligning more with nature than the news. Just don’t count this walk as exercise because your aim is reflective not aerobic. P.S. Circling your living room works, too!

Write Your Own Rules – You know those inspirational posters with positive intention statements on them? Words like “Thrive” and “Success” spring to mind. Try silently repeating your own sequence of words in moments of stress or struggle. Words have power, especially when you choose the ones you want to be mindful of. I often choose words that reflect things I want to be, such as calm, strong, logical, happy, and healthy. Being mindful can prevent you from reacting impulsively. You’ll be better able to engage in the things that bring you joy, and it can even help with insomnia (which a lot of us, myself included, are struggling with right now).

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Looking back, I recognize that my experience with the monks at Mount Baldy shaped who I am today. Mindfulness is at the core of my waking life, as is humor. The connection I choose to make each and every minute is filled with an awareness that I am part of something surprising, substantial, and sustaining. So … where does – or will – mindfulness carry you?

Just a few years ago, K-beauty (short for Korean beauty) began taking hold in the U.S., and finding products meant shopping from just a handful of American retailers or getting adventurous and ordering directly from South Korea. Flash forward to 2020, and you can find K-beauty products on Amazon, eBay, and lining the shelves in Sephora, Ulta, Walmart, CVS, and Target. And not just a few fringe brands.

Some of the biggest brands in Asian Beauty are available locally…but what should you buy, and how do you put together that staggering multi-step routine? Before you decide to overhaul your entire skin care routine, take this advice to heart: Start slow, integrating one new product over a course of weeks, and build over time.

So…What Is an Essence?

An essence is a watery skin care gift that’s chock-full of skin loving ingredients. Its purpose is to both hydrate and treat bothersome skin conditions, like dull, uneven skin tone, rough texture, and hyper-pigmentation (i.e. sun damage or old acne scars). Many essences also contain anti-aging ingredients.

When you pour one in your hand, you’ll think, “What’s this really going to do for my dry ass cheeks?” Well, it’s going to sink in quickly and plump your skin from the inside out while working to treat additional issues. Short answer: It’s gonna give you that youthful lit-from-within glow that no amount of cream-based moisturizer can give.

Where Does It Fit in My Routine?

There are many different types of essences, so you’ll want to consider the overall consistency of the product when determining where to put it in your routine. Most watery essences, also known as First Treatment Essences, are used immediately after cleansing (and even before applying toner). If you opt for a thicker essence with the consistency of a serum or lightweight gel, you can apply that after your toner. And here’s the fun part: you can use more than one essence in your routine, or even more than one layer. Your skin will guide you here, so if first you apply and still feel dry, slap on some more and see how it goes.

Don’t Patch Test with Your Entire Face!

I’ve often wondered why consumers, especially women, will buy an entire skin care line at one time and then jump in with both feet. Your face is fragile. Hear me on this one. You want to minimize the likelihood of a reaction BEFORE you apply a new product to your whole face. When you bring home your essence, try it out on your arm or neck a couple times before moving on to your face. If nothing happens, you’re ready to enjoy the first slippery splash of heavenly goodness. P.S. If all works out, be sure to use it from your forehead to your décolleté (and don’t forget your hands). 

Personalize with Your Goals in Mind

If you’re over 40 (or 50, like me) caring for your skin now requires a different approach than when you were younger. Clinique’s 3-step method has been in place for decades, but you shouldn’t feel locked in to a singular regimen or brand for that matter. Asian Beauty is all about mixing and matching to find your perfect balance. When you decide to purchase an essence, you can expect it to add additional hydration, but you may be looking for other benefits as well. Here are some ingredients and what they do:

1. Niacinamide occurs naturally in vegetables and some seeds and is used to reduce dark spots and other types of hyper-pigmentation.
2. Adenosine improves skin texture, making it smoother overall.
3. Vitamin C fights dark spots and breakouts.
4. Saccharomyces Ferment (yeast) increases cell turnover to help new healthy skin come to the surface. It’s also used to firm and brighten the skin tone.

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Ready to shop? Just hit the Beautytap.com website or connect with me here, and I’ll help you on your journey.

Stay pretty!

Okay, ladies. Let’s talk hair color. In our early adult years, we toyed with hot pink streaks here, some highlights there, but most of us stuck with tradition and followed our peers’ direction. In hindsight, we were following in our mothers’ footsteps. “Coloring” your hair meant dyeing, and anything that looked unnatural was off the table. These days, though, color has exploded into a form of self-expression with attitude. Whether soft and subtle or bold and brilliant, there’s no denying that colored hair means thinking (and dyeing) way out of the box.

Be it unicorn hair or an ultra-shiny metallic silver, the world of color has changed…and so has our desire to embrace it! If you’re wondering, “Can I really pull this off?” The answer is a resounding, “Hell yes!” And here’s how.

Do you want your hair to whisper, talk, or shout? FYI, your answer goes here.

Subtle: Streaks and Tips

If you’ve been “whispering” all these years, then going slow is the way to go. You may want to ask for babylights. These ultra-thin highlights add dimension in a subtle way and give your hair a kiss of freshness. Opting for multicolored tips (ends) also gives you a chance to experiment without making a drastic change. If your base shade runs on the darker side, playing with deep blue or purple can create drama and help you transition into a bolder overall shade down the road.

Branching Out: Hidden Color

Hair that “talks” used to mean chunky highlights or obviously colored locks. Today’s tresses talk upon command. In other words (pun intended), you can have bold color and even rainbow hair…underneath! Call it undercolor, hidden color, or underlights, the outcome is the same: the upper layer remains business as usual, while the underneath has a secret party of its own. With this option, the only thing holding you back is your imagination.

Bold AF: Allover Nontraditional Hues

If your hair has “whispered” your whole life and is ready to “shout,” the world of color beckons. Rose gold hues are noncommittal and fade gracefully, while vibrant red/orange and deep blue/green says you’re not afraid to stand out. And if you’re having trouble deciding, follow Guy Tang on Instagram. He’s the color genius behind glow-in-the-dark rainbow hair and the shiny metallic grey and rose that have the Internet buzzing.

P.S. Wanna see how far we’ve come? Check out this vintage commercial from Clairol! Advertisers certainly weren’t shy about telling us why we should dye!

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For many of us, beauty, especially makeup, is more than just a passing interest. Mine is deeply rooted in both memory and tradition. From a corner bench, I watched my mother’s daily ritual of primping, captivated by shiny lipstick tubes and fluffy brushes. For me, beauty is a key part of what it means to be female, and never once have I considered it a chore, an obligation, or a means to pretend I am something I am not. It was, and still is, a pleasure I give myself without reservation or apology.

As the years have passed, and my budget has grown, I’ve ventured into the land of high end cosmetics, if only to see if there really is a difference. But that quest comes with a price tag. A steep one at that, so I look for bargains just like everyone else. But growing up in Southern California has made me hyper-aware of one distasteful aspect of the beauty industry: counterfeiting. And with a thriving outdoor market culture, finding bogus beauty doesn’t take a lot of effort or investigative skill…and, hence, the allure of “buying in” instead of “buying smart.”

A Thriving Business – Counterfeit makeup is big business. Consider The Estée Lauder Companies, which own Aveda, Bobbi Brown, Clinique, Estée Lauder, La Mer, M.A.C., and Tom Ford Beauty among others. In 2016, “governments made more than 1,500 seizures of fake Estée Lauder products, totaling more than 2.8 million items, most of them M.A.C. makeup.” And the financial loss isn’t the only factor. With easy access to review sites, consumers can post reviews, both glowing and scathing, and those negative reviews (often the result of getting duped) substantially damage a brand’s reputation. But what about the consumer with the bogus product? How bad can knock-offs really be?

Serious Big-Time Bad Ingredients – Look on eBay, and you’ll find popular brand name makeup (M.A.C., Kylie Cosmetics, Too Faced, Anastasia Beverly Hills, etc.) for pennies on the dollar. We’d all like to think that these sellers have an in with someone in the industry and are selflessly working to clear inventory while giving us all a great deal. Well…the old adage is true: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” And since we’re talking about our faces (which inevitably absorb anything we put on them), ingredients matter. According to an FBI report, “Phony cosmetics often contain things such as arsenic, beryllium, and cadmium (all known carcinogens) along with high levels of aluminum and dangerous levels of bacteria. Some of these products have caused conditions like acne, psoriasis, rashes, and eye infections.” No one should sacrifice their personal well-being for a bargain blush.

Shopping Safe Means Shopping Smart – The simplest way to avoid a counterfeit item is to buy directly from the brand itself. We all love Sephora, which is a reputable authorized retailer and a safe source, but brands often offer better sales directly to their loyal customers, so sign up for their emails and newsletters to stay in the bargain loop. Beyond that, follow these tips from the FBI:

• Check that price tag. Unscrupulous sellers will often mark prices slightly lower to give the appearance of authenticity. And if the price is WILDLY less, close your wallet.
• Scrutinize the packaging. If the lettering looks off or the package color deviates from the norm, walk away.
• Be wary of limited edition labeling…especially if your favorite brand doesn’t typically have limited offerings (or collaborations).

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Being brand loyal means being informed. Occasionally, we all buy something that doesn’t work out, which is one final reason to shop in reputable locations that also have a solid return policy. You only have one face. Don’t risk injuring it for the sake of a bargain.

[Article first appeared in The Beo Club app. Reprinted with permission.]