Re: Travel and Fashion

On 29 Mar 2007 09:33:12 -0700, "Yukon" <loyza@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

You are right in that respect Tom. And you never know. I decided to
take a chance in that respect. Nowadays the medical community is not
"anti-sun" as they used to be.

I believe that it's mostly genetics. Both of my parents were outdoor
people, always tanned and they died of different reasons. At 62, my
skin still looks pretty good, considering I spent so much time in
direct sun like tubing down the Salt River in AZ in the middle of the
summer, working construction in my early twenties.

Best I can tell from doing a lot of studying in the area and greatly
simplifying, cancer takes a combination of genetic predisposition and
a triggering event. The proportions can range all over the place -
90% predisposition and 10% trigger or vice versa. Given a large
enough trigger, say surviving 900 RADs whole body radiation exposure,
there doesn't need to be much of any predisposition for the leukemia
that follows.

I got interested in this after I realized that my ex's family on both
sides had THE GENES. Every single member of her family as far back as
we could trace had died of some sort of cancer.

Anyway, sun exposure. My bloodlines are exactly the opposite. No
cancer anywhere that I can detect on either side, and both families
can be traced back to pre-colonial days. That said, my mom has been
helping put the plastic surgeon's kids through college for about 10
years now thanks to having been a sun goddess in her younger days.

She was a babe and the tan only made it better. She's now paying for
it. Now I do admit to enjoying being allowed in the operatory to
watch while the surgeon remove the top half of her nose and then
reconstructed it from cheek tissue but I don't think it was quite so
fun for her. Even though her genetics are excellent regarding cancer,
she sunbathed so much that the damage over-rode 'em.

As a kid I suffered one of those horrendous sunburns complete with the
blisters and sores that comes when you come out from winter and spend
dawn to dusk at the beech on one of those early sunny but cool and
breezy days. Everything that got burned went from fair to freckled.
I'm now, as they say about prostate cancer, watchfully waiting. I've
had a few suspicious spots biopsied, fortunately benign. Rootin' for
those genes :-)

Oh shorts. Don't wear 'em. Nothing to do with manliness. I do so
much stuff that puts my legs at risk that I need the protection.

Also there's the matter of visual pollution. Thanks to an early
career motocross racing, my legs look like the battlefield after
Waterloo. The various bumps and protrusions that come from arthritis
don't help the visuals any either.

I occasionally try 'em when it's REAL hot and I'm not around others
but my legs feel naked so they don't stay on long. Besides,
lightweight pants are about as cool and help soak up sweat and
evaporate it.
---
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
Cleveland, Occupied TN
All great things are simple and many can be expressed in single words:
Freedom, Justice, Honor, Duty, Mercy, Hope. -Churchill
.

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