Don’t you recognize Martian camouflage?

Jim Goldsworthy, Columnist
Cumberland Times-News

December 01, 2007 07:01 pm

— t’s a weird sensation, to smell your own flesh burning.
That woke you up, didn’t it?
I suppose I could blame society in general and my parents in particular because I grew up in an era when it was good to be outside in the sun and to be suntanned, and if you got a little sunburn ... so what?
Nobody had heard of sunscreen when my friends and I were kids, but I began using it after my dad started going in to have the doctor nuke the suspicious spots he developed because he grew up in an era when it was good to be outside in the sun ... and so on.
I figured the time would come when I’d need to have it done myself, and I was right.
The doctor told me to return in two weeks, and he would remove my basal cell carcinoma (something he said he does many times each day) from the triangle-shaped place that gets plenty of sun because I wear open-collared shirts all year long.
Then he said I should spend that two weeks dosing my face with a cream that would remove the layer of skin that was likely to develop a substantial crop of other malignancies.
There were little red keratosis spots that came and went on my forehead and cheeks, and I had ignored all but those that sprang up on my nose because (drumroll) ... they were as plain as the nose on my face.
I don’t remember the doctor’s exact description of what I would look like while I was using this cream, but he led me to suspect that it wouldn’t be pretty.
His nurse said my face would eventually be like new because of this treatment, and I was tempted to ask her if I could try it on other body parts that don’t work as well as they used to — you know, like my knees or my back — but thought better of it.
This cream wasn’t cheap, and it came with a paper that listed possible side effects, most of them incredibly gross to even think about. One included the words “may become unsightly.”
Unsightly. No (fooling). In a few days, my face was covered with big red scaly blotches, and more than one person asked me if I had the shingles.
So I began giving folks creative answers, which included (but were not limited to, because one of my favorites was thoroughly unprintable) the following:
• I’m part of an Air Force experiment to develop camouflage for use on Mars.
• I’m glad I didn’t go to Allegany, because I’d hate like hell to be seen in public looking like this. (For you foreigners, Allegany’s colors are blue and white. Its crosstown arch-rival Fort Hill’s colors are red and white.)
• The worst thing about it is that every time I look in the mirror, I get a craving for pizza with lots of tomato sauce and crusty cheese.
• I don’t care how it’s pronounced, keratosis is not Bugs Bunny Syndrome.
• I’m an ogre. This is the part where you run away. (One of my ex-girlfriends says that my frequent Shrek imitations contributed to my getting tossed. And who says an ogre has to be green?)
• It looks a lot worse from your side than it does from mine, and no, it doesn’t itch.
• If I had long, shaggy ears, pretty girls might think I was a Brittany spaniel and want to scratch my tummy.
I met folks who’ve undergone the same treatment, and some said they’d looked even worse than I did. Three of my women friends told me I was still handsome in spite of it, bless their hearts and may their lives ever be filled with chocolate.
When I went back in two weeks, the doctor burned off my basal cell carcinoma (an odd smell, that) and told me that looking like a testbed for Martian camouflage and peeling like 50-year-old paint was the ideal reaction.
Why do I make light of this? One reason is because I can. It’s far better to handle unpleasantness with a sense of humor than to hide at home in the dark, afraid that the world will find you at less than your best.
Besides, one of my closest friends just had his cancerous stomach removed. The doctors believe all of the cancer is gone, and he’s undergoing radiation and chemotherapy to make sure.
When we talked the other night, he told me he’d been rollerskating a few days before and was irritated because he hadn’t made a reservation to go to a dance this weekend. He had his wife take him to a fast-food joint because he had a craving for a cheeseburger and french fries. It took him a while, but he ate all of it.
We decided it was time to get our old Saturday breakfast gang back together, and there’s a Chinese restaurant we want to go back to.
He asked if I knew another fellow who recently lost his stomach because he wants to meet him, talk to him and let him know he still has a full, rich life ahead. That’s what my friend is expecting for himself, and there’s no reason for him not to have it.
There’s been quite a change in the man, because when we parted company two days before he was to have the operation, he was almost too weak to stand, and I felt that I might not see him again. Now, he’s actually putting on weight.
What I had was a brief little inconvenience, you see, one that took no courage at all to deal with.
My friend also told me about a young girl he’s close to, who because of her own cancer may well be dead by the time you read this.
And if today’s discussion inspires you or somebody else to see a doctor about that place on your arm or your face — the funny-looking spot that makes you wonder if you ought to have it removed, and it turns out you should — it will have been worthwhile.

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