Facial lesion update - No, it's not like you asked

So, the face thing.

(If you don't know what I'm talking about - go read "on being Irish" in the archives and then come back here.)

It's been a week of slathering on the stinging F-U cream (hee! And yes, I'm beginning to realize just how unfunny that joke really is. Won't stop me from using it, just so you know), and I'm starting to get the eagerly anticipated facial lesions! Oh yes, internets! The scaling and scabbing has begun! The reminders of my youthful solar indiscretions have commenced with the popping up of red itchy things all over me freckled forehead!

If I'm counting correctly, I've got about 6 spots that are coming along very nicely indeed - the one spot that prior to the treatment was already causing some discomfort (like, you shouldn't be able to FEEL your skin if nothing's going on with it, right?), 4 (four!) over the outside of my left eyebrow, and one floater hanging out right near the top of my forehead. There may indeed be one starting up INSIDE my left eyebrow, but so far it's not a fast comer.

You can imagine my disappointment when I realized that I would not, in fact, light up like a Christmas Tree in a whorehouse, a goal to which I was aspiring and hopeful I could achieve. It's reasonably impressive, in a "Frankenstein's Monster" kind of way, and smacks of "more for your money and time" in a weird way.

Wait, let me see if I can find a picture of what I was promised in the brochure...(trots off to to a little Googling)......

Holy crap!!

Oh y'all, do NOT look for "Efudex" on Google images! Oh, the horror!! Oh, my God - the man from "boomer books" has taken the wind right out of my wee sails on this thing. It's disgusting! OK, yes, fine, he had diagnosed SKIN CANCER (squamous, not basal), and I didn't, but freaking freaky-deeks, y'all, nobody should have to look like that! Imagine, if you will, what a slightly overdone pepperoni pizza looks like, then overlay that image onto someone's face......yes, it IS that bad.

Wow.

Let me search a little further, then, to see if I can turn up something that looks like the brochure I was given.....what about "topical flourouracil" google pics????

Criminy!

I thought it couldn't get worse! Oh, friends, do NOT do this search and look for photos, else the delicious lunch you just finished come back for a second audition. I'm warning you, for the preservation of your delicate systems, whatever you do, do NOT look at the pictures.

You have now been warned - search at your own risk.

Oh, sure, they SAID there might be scabbing, they SAID there might be scaling, they SAID there might be redness, but Oh.My.GOD, if I'd seen THOSE pictures before I'd started this treatment I might have just opted to plunge my face into a vat of simmering E.V.O.O. and had the flaying over with in one go.

Hmmmm....wonder if it's too late to ask if they do that as an office visit?

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Newsflash - I'm having sushi and strawberries for lunch. Don't you wish you were me right about now? Mmmmm, wasabi.

One word to the wise - eat your sushi within a couple of days of buying it from your friendly neighborhood grocery store sushi man. If you don't, there's every chance the sushi will disintegrate in your hands and the rice will be a tad chewy from dessication. Other than that, it's not bad at all.

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In other news - isn't it great when you use your native bloodhound instincts and spend your lunch hour hunting down someone from your past and actually find a way to get in touch with them, and they WRITE BACK? Huh? Isn't it?

Isn't it also cool when the person you hunted down responds kindly and not with a restraining order against you and your nosy proclivities, admonishing you to bug out of their life and leave them the heck alone, because you're the reason they moved halfway across the country to a little backwater town that has more goats than people and gets its electricity through a series of water-powered turbines and windmills?

I know! So true!

I say this because I had the marvelous good fortune yesterday to hear from someone I knew when I was a freckled little teen-girl with a perky rack, someone who I thought might not offer a response to the e-mail I sent to the assistant of the community chorus of which he is a part because he failed to recall my impact on his early years, but what ho! He sent back an e-mail of humor and news that made my day. Really, what's not to like about a letter that combines Target, a wedding, and tiki bars?

Again, I can feel your envy all the way over here.
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Lastly, let me just say that at some point in the future I will once again delve into subjects that have actual form and substance, and will commence ascetic preparations in order to preach to you of social injustice and science and space, but for now I'm feeling giddy and silly and lucky; none of which lend themselves very well at all to discussions of serious matters like DNA-shaped nebulae (which, when viewed from the top, looks much like a Cremesaver) or the bird flu pandemic (run! run for your lives!) or mad cow disease (I say Bossy, I'm right put out by this latest story in the Times!) or why people insist on having annoying ringtones (because they can? I don't know).

But first, we'll have to get through the Friday headlines tomorrow. Then it's back to all business.