Suncream Reality Check: Personal Skin Cancer Experience Revealed

**Warning** Graphic photographs of skin cancer operations

Much as it doesn’t currently feel much like it here in Gloucestershire, summer is coming. Now, lets have a show of hands, who wears suncream if they’re working outside? Anyone? Brace yourselves, while I climb onto my soapbox. Precious few of us are religiously putting suncream on, even with outdoor jobs. I know, I know, slathering yourself in it isn’t the most macho look, and it feels greasy, I forget, etc, etc. Let me stop you all there. 

Last October, the day after my 38th birthday, I was diagnosed with stage 1 melanoma. If you aren’t familiar with your various skin cancers, thats the one that can potentially be fatal. While I didn’t expect to get told I had cancer (the fact it was a Macmillan nurse giving me the results of a biopsy on a mole I’d had removed was a dead giveaway when I walked in) realistically I have no-one to blame but myself for it. I have fair, naturally moley skin (which surprisingly tans quite well) and during a large percentage of my 20s, whilst off gallivanting around the world, I was a big subscriber in factor 6 (at best) Hawaiian Tropic suncream. If I put any on. I’d love nothing more than lying in the sun, bikini on, rotating like a giant rotisserie chicken trying to get an even tan. 

So, following my diagnosis, which obviously happened while him indoors was working away for a few days, things had to change. I was told that I needed a further operation around the scar material which had popped open when the stitches were taken out, making the initial wound site bigger. For safety’s sake to make sure they’d removed all cancerous cells, another centimetre of flesh was taken from around that scar. Unfortunately, I’d not factored in that also meant a centimetre deeper into my arm. I have quite slender arms so this ended up being far more of an operation than I’d realised. I’d been due to go to work the next day but waking up the next morning I couldn’t even pull my own pants up as I had no grip in my left hand.

From having the initial mole removed last June, I have still not been given the all clear and will be under the cancer clinic until September at the earliest with another mole due to be removed in July. 

I had a long conversation with the Macmillan nurses about what suncream I should be wearing and the frequency. Literally, bin anything less than factor 30. Sorry to break the bad news ladies, but that tinted moisturiser with SPF in it just has the SPF to protect the moisturiser, it does diddly squat to protect you. I have an iPhone and on the standard weather app it gives you a UV index. Anything more than low and I now have suncream on. I’ve also become a fan of the Australian-made Brumby shirts which keep me covered up and not sweating too much. 

The ubiquitous farmer tan is well known. Looking as though you have a white t-shirt on with scarlet arms and neck might be comical, but it’s no laughing matter. And please don’t feel that I’m purely calling out farmers here. I’m sure gamekeepers, grooms etc have their own version. Even though I tend to think of men not wearing suncream, as a female I’m not being fair. I’ve stood there rubbing suncream into a horse’s pink nose so it didn’t burn whilst not thinking that perhaps my skin needed the same care. There are some great initiatives within the countryside community supporting mental health amongst those who live and work our land. Making sure you check in on your mates. Maybe we need to start also making sure they’re taking care of their bodies as well. We need to get over the stumbling block of embarrassment and look out for our mates. The day I got my diagnosis, I rang my best friend and she was in tears. Would you rather feel a bit silly checking that your friend is wearing suncream or would you rather be going to their funeral? 

I do a reasonably large amount of beating each winter. If its a sunny but cold day, you’ll see me putting my suncream on before we leave the yard. I now have refillable silicon squeezy tubes of suncream EVERYWHERE. I have them in my car, in my coats, in handbags and in my beating box of bits that lives in the back of my car. If you see me out and about, I will always share suncream with you. Just ask. We need to normalise this. I’m fortunate that my skin cancer was caught quite early before it had entered my blood stream and has only needed surgery to treat. You may feel that showing these photos is going too far. But if I can raise awareness of the dangers of not wearing suncream and covering up, then it’ll be worth it. Get your skin checked and get that suncream on.