Recently I’ve had to physically hold myself back from going
up to not one, but TWO chicks that had large moles. The first one I saw a younger girl, probably
16 years old, she had a fairly large mole on the back of her thigh – definitely
larger than the eraser tip on a pencil.
The second one was a woman in Trader Joe's and she had one on the back of
her left calve, also pretty big. I
really don’t want to be the weirdo that walks up saying “Can I take a
closer look at that?” I know they would
look at me like I am the crazy person that I am and I’d have to go into a spiel
of why I acted on the urge to ask them about their mole. Then I’d say, “Don’t worry, I’m a
professional Melanomaholic, I am here
to help.” Again, I’d get the crazy
look. I can see it now. Have I mentioned I’m sorta psychic? Maybe I should spell it: psorta psychic or more often than not: psorta psycho.
My friends used to joke around that if someone would pass by with a general “Hi,
how are ya?” I would fill that random person in with my life story within about
5 minutes, complete with my zodiac sign.
Other times I am a little timid and would rather stick to whatever I came
to do – whether it be pick out the apples I planned on buying or renting that
movie at Blockbuster (yes, I’m one of the 10 people in America that still go there). I can absolutely be an overly outgoing person and I don’t
mind striking up a conversation with someone I’ve never met. If I have a question, I typically want to
have to it answered and I would rather ask than be curious about it for the
rest of the day (or until I see a shiny penny and get distracted).
I’m curious about a couple of things:
1) What would you do if someone
approached you basically saying that something looked wrong and you should seriously
think about getting it checked out by a physician? Would you be upset with the fact that someone
actually came up to you and pointed out something that you haven’t even noticed
yourself about your own body, or maybe you have noticed it but have just
thought of it as a flaw – a flaw that someone you don’t know just bluntly asked
you about? Or would you be grateful
because you’re obviously unaware of something that other people are noticing?
2) Have you ever approached a
complete stranger yourself about a health concern? How did that person react?
Tough one Amber....I think it would all depend on how open & friendly the person looked. Don't want you getting slapped down! You are a great educator & many people are ill informed about skin cancers in general.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to get slapped down, either! But, maybe if I come across as more of a "hey, you should pay attention to this" than "how the hell haven't you noticed this before" <- which I would never do.
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