Cooking in the Sun

I love the outdoors, but today’s column isn’t about summer barbeque. My Dad was from Brooklyn New York and was not into camping, hunting or fishing.  He did, however, teach me to play golf and that is the outdoor activity I most enjoy today.

As a kid I loved all sports. I was always out in the summer sun playing kick-ball, baseball, tag football, volleyball, basketball, racket ball or tennis.  When I was working, I was either cutting grass or painting or doing some sort of outdoor maintenance work or some part-time construction job.  Growing up I was working or playing in the sun from dawn to dusk seven days a week.

The thing I enjoyed most during the summer months in high school was driving down to the Jersey shore with a gang of friends.  We’d go to Ocean City and hang out on the beach for hours or walk the boardwalk. Invariably we stayed in the hot sun until we were burned to a crisp.  I remember one summer getting so sunburned on my back, I blistered.

In college for several summers I got very tanned driving an old tractor, hatless and shirtless, from dawn to dusk cutting the roadside grass. I covered 40 miles or so a day, driving in one direction from the break of dawn to sunset.  Then I would park the tractor and hitch-hike back to where I left my car.

In my youth I didn’t know that too much exposure to the sun could lead to cancer.  Working in Tokyo for many years, I was hardly ever in the sun, so I never gave it much thought.  I had an office job and most of time I was commuting by subway.  On the weekends in Japan I went sailing in the summer and skiing in the winter.  In later years I got into equestrian riding and would ride out doors on the weekends all year long. It wasn’t until we moved back to Florida in 1998 that I became conscious of how much sun exposure I was getting.

My wife Yoko, on the other hand, being Japanese, has always minimized her exposure to the sun. When Yoko is outdoors she wears a wide-brim hat and sprays on SPF 50 sunscreen. Her attitude toward being in the sun has to do, to some degree, with what the Japanese have traditionally thought when it comes to skin “beauty.”  The geisha and the beautiful young maiko (geisha in training) powered their faces white as a way to enhance their beauty. Japanese who work outdoors are subject to getting sun “spots” or blemishes on their skin, creating imperfections. The Japanese are taught in school about the danger of too much sun exposure.

About four years ago, as I was being treated for lung cancer, my oncologist noticed a spot on my scalp that, to my untrained eye, looked like nothing more than a freckle. My oncologist thought the spot looked suspicious and advised me to see a dermatologist.  I did. One week later the biopsy came back positive as early stage melanoma.

I had surgery to remove the malignancy.  I thought the surgery would be no big deal. I was wrong. It turned out, the out-patient surgery required a two inch diameter circle of skin be removed from my scalp.  It was replaced by a skin graft that took months to heal.  The surgery left me with an ugly permanent scar on the back of my head.  Ever since I see a dermatologist every six months for a full body exam covering every inch of skin.

The worse part of this story is that my beautiful wife, who, now having been vindicated about the danger of sun exposure, nags me whenever I go out doors. “Wear a hat, put on sunscreen, and cover your face and ears with sunscreen,” she says.

It’s hard for me to admit, but she is right… I don’t want to be any uglier than I already am.  And that’s what skin cancer can do for you, or worse.