Why I stopped sun tanning!

I was always the tannest girl around...I started going to the tanning bed in high school and before that I laid out everyday in middle school when summer began. I was dark/tan/leathery/ with the most bleached and fried locks you have ever seen. I used sun it and when the summer ended I just bleached my hair to death.

My tanorexia lasted for many many years...all through high school...going to the tanning bed my senior year EVERY single day! What an accomplishment! 

College was a different story...it was the grundge era..so tanning was not cool anymore so I stopped (for awhile ).... I hated being "pale"...hated when my hair turned brown from no sun in...HATED it!

So I started back sun tanning and tanning bed post college. 

In 1998 three moles that I have had since birth on my chest started becoming noticeable dry. I went the the dermatologist and they wanted to remove them all and told me I would be left with large visible scars. I decided to get a second opinion with a plastic surgeon. He said he would remove them and barely leave a scar....so he removed them all three of them...

They biopsy report came back with unclean margins...so he removed more skin....again the biopsy report came back with unclean margins. At this point the plastic surgeons nurse took me aside telling me that I have melanoma and that I needed to go to a Derm (basically she was telling me that the doc she worked for didn't know what he was doing.)

So back to the original Derm I went. He removed 3-5 inches of skin around each mole. Never mentioned that I had melanoma but in my head that was exactly what I had.

So from 1998 until 2012 I had always thought that I had had melanoma. 

One day when cleaning out cabinets I ran across the paperwork from the original plastic surgeon. I thought man I need to give this to my current Derm so she has it in my files. (Side bar...since 1998 I have been skin checked from head to toe by a Derm every 6 months... And have had countless moles, skin tags, and other atypical moles removed but never more than atypical)...

I was shocked to receive a call one day from my derms nurse telling me that they read through the paperwork and that I had NEVER had melanoma! NEVER! They were just atypical moles which had long been removed with clean margins! 

So I like to say that even though I never actually had melanoma that thinking that I had saved me from a life of tanning. My skin has not been in the sun without SPF protection, protective clothing, sunglasses and a hat...since 1998! 

Now I am a vampire!

And .....

Now I self tan only!!