saving you a trip

I need someone to tell me what to do all the time. I'm not a good decision maker. I should be wearing a helmet. I'm getting older. I have brown spots on my skin that are turning into bigger brown spots. I have flat brown spots that are turning into bumpy brown spots. I have a mom who had some questionable brown spots gouged out. I have a very special lady part that had some questionable onlygod&gynoknowswhatcolor spots gouged out. I have a fear that there is a horrible malignancy just lurking somewhere that I can't see. I have fabulous health insurance. I had a dermatologist appointment today.

If you know me personally I'll tell you a few details about my appointment in a face to face setting if you are interested. Alas, even a wordsmith such as I can sometimes be at a loss to describe something without sounding like a totally insensitive a-hole and I don't want you to think I'm an a-hole.

Insensitive I'm okay with.

Anyway, the long and short of it was that I weaseled my way in to one of the most highly respected dermatologist offices in the city by chance, calling five minutes after there was a cancellation so instead of a six month+ wait I had a six day wait to get a full body screen. And, I may have said that I was very concerned about a new mole on my scalp that I accidentally pierced with a bobby pin. It isn't totally a lie, I did manage to cut myself with a safety-tipped beauty accessory, and I do have a mole up there but it isn't new and I cut myself near it not on it. Whatever. So I got in and I told the doctor that I was concerned with a few moles that have changed slightly over the past few years and she did a full body scan and wrote some stuff in my chart and said that I don't need to come back for a year and most of what I thought were moles were really freckles and they are bigger and browner because I am getting old and (hello!) it is summer and my skin looks healthy. She said to stay out of the sun and it was okay that I don't wash my face if it's not truly dirty but if i do I could try either Cetaphil or CeraVe and stay away from anything you can't buy at the drug store because it is a waste of money. She said the most important thing is a good moisturizing sunscreen and that shouldn't cost more than $20 a bottle and it really doesn't have to cost more than ten.

Then I asked her if I was ten years older what would she advise I use and she said she would advise the same thing no matter what age I was. Oil of Olay and Neutrogena and Aveeno and their generic equivalents are fabulous products and it is just a matter of finding the one that works for you which might take a year but all the money you'll spend trying these out probably won't equal a bottle of the expensive department store stuff.

Then I asked her about her own line that she sells in the office and she said that some people just like to spend money and she likes to make it.

Fair enough.