Four Week Challenge

Just under four weeks to go with the skin cancer cream nnd l'm not too hopeful. I have been a bit erratic about the twice a day--sometimes too tired, sometimes too fragiile. But my routine is now better and more determined.
So much so that I am going to try to journal my days--it's supposed to be the best way to stay on track.
Started a four-day diet to tackle my weight--now danger level --a stone over a stone overweight hehe. Okay, let's be honest. l should lose two stones. The weight round my middle is dangerous and must go.

Day One--four meals of 400 calories, focussing on using monounsaturated fats to fight the accumulation of unhealthy fat round my middle.

1. breakfast: muesli, skimmed milk. coffee (naughty)
2. lunch      : salad made from olives, olives stuffed with almonds and a chopped apple. perhaps a bit salty? Drinking a glass of water with lemon juice and added ground ginger.refreshing.
3. tea         : feeling a bit hungrier now. Good.  looking forward to helping of raspberries and plain yogurt. another glass of lemon water?

Applying skin cancer treatment

What your doctor may not tell you--or rather what no one thought to tell me.

Super tip from my pharmacist

Use a tiny brush to apply cream or gel sparingly to the affected skin only. I'm using a cotton bud but even that can be a bit bulky as a skin cancer treatment.

Using fingers is a no no--far too clumsy and applies too large an amount of the stuff to too large an area.

Day Five

Well, still alive hehe. The patches glow very red on the night time application and I do find everything itching a bit more than usual. Blood pressure rocketed to 169 over 89 yesterday but back down to 123 over 83 last night. So far, so cheerful.

Still wearing the baseball cap--only garrotted myself once yesterday. Stood on dog.


Thought for the Day

With such a low percentage of actinic keratoses turning into full-blown skin cancer, am I wise to be treating these patches at all? I could just be annoying them irrevocably into full scale attack.

To be discussed with new doctor on Friday. Yep, yet another one to do the cryosurgery. And no, it's not because I ask too many questions...at least, I don't think so...

The perils of baseball caps

Back again, almost three years to the day.

The Efudix as predicted was not totally successful. I suffered none of the monstrous disfigurement I feared in my wild imaginings. One small spot disappeared and has stayed disappeared--hurrah--but I was left with three red patches on my nose.

My nose changed shape and the bone was more-than-sensitive. The only happy outcome was losing a stone in weight as I could not eat chocolate or sweets without feeling ill. 

"These will go in time," said my consultant airily studying the patches with an air of surprise. The obvious conclusion drawn by someone who predicted 100% success. Sadly they did not go and now three years later, they are larger so back to the medical center.

This time I am not sent to the consultant. We are going to try a combination of cryosurgery and Solaraze. "Not so toxic," says the doctor cheerfully although the warning signs are there.

"Be careful," warned the pharmacist. "Don't use on unaffected skin." I'll be applying it with a pin-head, then.

" ....hmmm didn't realise you had to carry on the treatment for three months..." murmured the doctor.


Hmmm indeed, compounded by the fact that I seem to have every problem the instruction leaflet warns against. High blood pressure: tick...don't remember the others as I threw the leaflet away or I'd never have started.

 Now on Day Two. As usual already looking worse not better.

The Perils of Baseball Caps

I have had it drummed into me ad nauseam, so much so that I do feel physically ill if I find myself outside even at night without my baseball cap. Not a drop of sunlight must hit my poor face while I'm undergoing this treatment.

So far today I have stood on a hen, walked in to a string fence and from experience I know it is only a matter of time before I concuss myself by battering my head against a closed top door as I limbo in and out of the stables.


Baseball caps certainly restrict the sun but more lethally they restrict vision  to danger levels. No more will I scoff at senior citizens in baseball caps. Anyone in a baseball cap must be in extremis.

Watching freckles

Watching freckles has become a way of life. A new and intriguing hobby, rather like reading tea leaves.


Three months ago I was diagnosed with a couple of patches of actinic keratosis.


The dermatologist was avuncular, friendly and very cheery. "Got this stuff now that gets rid of it. All be gone in three months."


He studied the rough patch now spreading across and down my nose. "Of course I will be able to operate if you do get skin cancer there," he said. He frowned a little, the smile disappeared. "It will be very painful, means cutting out bits of bone..."


Say no more.


But he did not have his prescription pad and gave me a note for the doctor instead.


That gave me time to hit the web to investigate my treatment and I worried and worried and then worried some more.


The patches were going to become severely inflamed, the skin would break and they would start weeping. I was going to look like a monster from the cartoon archives. It's bad enough teaching looking relatively normal. I could just imagine the reaction of my students when I turned up looking like a pestilential Baldric.


The web was not too encouraging either--no corroboration of the happy 100% success rate predicted --try 47%-83% --with my luck, I'd probably end up triggering the skin cancer I wss trying to avoid rather than eradicating its development.


There were no visible "Thanks to Efudix..." comments on the web logs. There were rather moans from sufferers saying how painful, unsightly, and dire their experience had been.


OK I'll be fair here --I did look up Efudix --warnings, counterindications or side effects. Obviously I wasn't looking for happiness.


"Actinic keratoses" said the doctor,one of his rare smiley days," Just sunspots --won't necessarily do anything. Come back is they change colour or get thicker."


Only 2% they say change into a squamous cell skin cancer. I trotted off quite happily , no prescription no pain.


I went back today -"The spot on my forhead is darker and thicker. Perhaps I could try cryosurgery."


It was not one of his smiley days. Having to start work at 3.30 pm was obviously painful. He studied the computer, nose to screen --his eyesight worse than mine.


"No we're going to use this cream --have you tried it yet?"


"Uh no. You were to write the prescription. We decided against it. And you said to come back if there was any change. So here I am."


His face stiffens. Patients are meant to be seen not heard. "hmmm I see here you came in October and had reservations."


It obviously doesn't say he agreed with me at the time. I specifically asked if he thought I was being silly not starting treatment immediately and he did say no -- for the sake of peace, I now see, and getting me out the door within my statutory ten minute appointment time.


I start treatment tomorrow and am keeping this log in the hope that it may someday help anyone like me who wants to know tha answers noone seems willing or able to give.


In the meantime, I have been awake since 4.30 am watching freckles, wondering whioh one is a lurking disaster waiting to happen.