There’s a Trump-like lesion on my lip, top and bottom, and it’s spreading, a pale red smear along the curve of my lip line, and not terribly painful.
It started as a cold sore, one of those ailments I’ve endured since childhood, but since childhood these cold sores erupt and develop and then they heal.
This one’s not healing so I took myself off to the local GP who didn’t like the look of it and sent me to a dermatologist who diagnosed ‘actinic cheilitis’. A grand name for the results of sun damage, not yet cancerous but on its way if left unchecked.
So now I need to take precautions in the form of sun screen protection, and also a touch of cortisone to heal it in the short term. But cortisone will not undo the effects of the sun. This treatment needs something stronger though the dermatologist recommended I wait till after summer for that.
I’m reaping the effects of all those years in the sun as a child soaking up the warmth on my skin and ignoring the possible consequences.
My mother talked of women’s skin aging prematurely, wrinkling up like parchment, but she did not consider cancer, and she was not too fussed about the effects on the skin of her sons.
Men can have wrinkly skin and all manner of blemishes before my mother would complain.
What would she think of the state of the world if she were alive today?
I’m doing my best here not to mention the American election but even the Trump like lesion on my skin reminds me of the price we pay for ignoring the dangers of too much exposure to the sun, both literally and metaphorically.