I recently wrote an article in Lydia’s Style Magazine about skin cancer.

The part I found most relevant to The Girl Revolution is that UV (utraviolet) rays, the substance that causes skin damage and skin cancer, are cumulative. Meaning, our body stores them in its cells for the duration of our lifetimes and they add up, never disappearing.

I’m a regular sunscreen-user now, but as a teen I layed out and sun worshipped, to get a tan. According to the dermatologists I interviewed, all those hours of laying out are accumulated UV rays that are in my body’s cells and could become skin cancer. They will still be there in my 60s and 80s too. So, I really want to use sunscreen, to rack up as few UV points as  possible during the remainder of my life, so as not to increase the risk.

People accumulate the majority of their lifetime UV rays as children and teens: recess, playing outside, riding bikes, spending entire summers playing in water, sun worshipping and tanning.

The more UV radiation they acquire as children, the higher the risk of skin cancer as adults. UV radiation can also lead to skin damage, like melasma or pregnancy mask, caused by sun exposure and hormones having a war on your face. I had this, it sucked and it was expensive to treat.

The advice of the dermatologists was to use a 30 SPF sunscreen on our children every hour. Not just in the morning. Not just at the pool. But, every day. All Day.

“Children should be applying sunscreen every hour when playing outdoors, including recess and getting to and from school, not just on a summer day at the pool,” said Mary Blattner, M.D., Lydia’s Style Magazine Oct. 2010.

I wasn’t that mom. I was sunscreen-at-the-pool mom. At the end of summer, they were golden and “protected” from burns, I thought. I was informed that this is also wrong, a good tan gives you an SPF protection of 4 (four). Totally inadequate.

My kids hate the sunscreens on the market currently. I have to chase them and insist they put it on. This isn’t a hugely fun thing for me to do every hour that they spend outside. They hate the chemically smell, they hate the greasy texture and feel, they hate that aerosol cloud. They HATE it!

Which is why The Girl Revolution is releasing a skin care line, TGR Body, with several forms of organic, natural, paraben and phthalate-free, sweet smelling, non-greasy sunscreen and sunblock.

Natural Beauty Sunscreen Powder looks a tiny bit like makeup, but it’s sunscreen. I love this mom fake-out that lets daughters feel more grown-up. It’s a good motivator for them to use it. The applicator has a brush on top, sunscreen in bottom. Just dust the brush around your face, done. It’s small enough to carry to school for recess. It comes in porcelain and beige to match skin tones. I can’t wait to show it to you.

Natural Beauty Sunblock Mist is a light, sweet-smelling, non-aerosol spray.

Natural Beauty Sunscreen Lotion feels like silk and smells very light.

For boys, we’ll carry Skin Armor Spray. It’s the same great sunscreen product, but labeled differently.

These sunscreens are natural, organic and safe for the whole family.

I’ll be talking more about the product-line and how excited I am about releasing TGR Body until the release in the next few weeks. I’m so excited!

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The Health Care Reform Bill passed the United States Senate yesterday.

This is a great day for girls and all other Americans. They will never lose their insurance. They can’t lose it if they “get” a pre-existing condition. They can’t lose it if their parents get laid off, if they marry the guy who gets laid off, they can’t lose it if they get divorced, they can’t lose it if they, themselves, get laid off.

And neither can we.

To Republicans who were against this bill: I’m sorry you feel that way. Fear seems to be the source of the angst about health care reform. To which I’ll quote the Motto of America: In God We Trust. Then I’ll quote the Bible and say, “Perfect love casts out fear.” I’ll further advise a shift in perspective to one of lack and limited resources to the reality that we’re still the richest nation on the Planet Earth and we live in a Universe of Abundance. We CAN afford it. It’s more efficient. Try to see it. It feels better.

I’ve noticed this about Republicans I know personally: though they say they are against social welfare programs, they seem to be pretty happy about cashing unemployment checks, having their babies on federal and state health care programs if they’re pregnant without insurance (many times on purpose), using public funds for family planning, feeding their kids on WIC and food stamps, filing for social security and medicare and medicaid when they need it. It’s a paradox I have not been able to puzzle out through the entire health care debate. I have no doubt they’ll all find the most beneficial way to use this health care bill too.

As they should.

I have equal faith that insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and health care providers will find a way to capitalize on this bill as well. It’s who they are and what they do. They’re freaking geniuses at it.

As they should.

Health care should focus on wellness and healing the sick.

I feel confident this Bill makes the best attempt possible  — in our complicated system of checks and balances and “great compromises” – to put the focus back on health, wellness and healing.

Now, if the American Citizens can get their own personal focus on compassion we’ll really be doing well. Perhaps that’s too much to ask of a Bill or a for-profit health care industry. Compassion can only happen in the hearts of Americans. I have faith we can pull that off too. It’s who we are. It’s what we do. We’re freaking geniuses at it.

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I feel sure that this is perhaps the only thing ever written on The Girl Revolution that is not in any way controversial: Breast Cancer is Bad.

Donating money for breast cancer research is good.

Pixascope Creative Agency and Between the Covers Book Club are partnering to beat down breast cancer by participating in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Austin, Texas on Nov. 1.

Please donate money today.

(That’s our aunt Debbie, a 5 year survivor. My grandmother is also a survivor.)

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So we’re on our way out the door to do the school drop off and Ainsley drops her full metal water bottle right on her big toe.

There was screaming. Hysteria. Crying. Poor Zack was scared out of his mind. I’d have sent her to school, except I thought the screaming and crying might disturb the other students and the teacher. Oh, and she was screaming, “I don’t want to go to school! I can’t walk! It hurts! It burns!”

The throbbing kept getting worse. The doctor’s office couldn’t see her till the next day and No Thank You to the Emergency Room.

So, I’m chatting on the phone with my mom and she’s practically convinced me that it would be so simple, not to mention so much cheaper, just to sterilize a needle and do it myself. Poke a hole in her toenail myself to let the blood out. So we’re clear.

Ainsley and I are down on the floor, praying, crying and hysterically shaking in fear and pain. I’m poised with my needle and realizing how hard I am going to have to poke to get it through the toenail.

I sort of rise above myself – you know when you see yourself and what you’re doing from the outside – have you ever had one of those moments? A news bulletin I recently heard flashes through my brain, “Can your child really be taken away if you don’t speak English?” (In a nation of immigrants, I hope not). But I think to myself, “What about if you perform home surgery on your child? What if it gets infected? I wonder if there’s a law about it?” I look at my poor child on the floor quivering with fear and pain.

I say one of my most frequent prayers, “Dear God, please don’t let this be the moment she remembers.” Out loud, I say, “Forget it, I’m not doing this. We’ll wait till we see the doctor tomorrow.” I abandoned my surgical ambitions and put another ice pack on it.

So the blood built up in her toe overnight. Throbbing . . . throbbing . . . throbbing . . .throbbing. Until the doctor could see us. I took a position holding her from behind, covering her eyes, and whispering “Shuush, I Love You, Lord be with my girl,” while the doctor and nurse poked the hole in her toenail and the blood could ooze out. Then the doctor ordered x-rays to see if it was broken and Ainsley was thrilled with being pushed in a wheelchair.

On the way to the dentist, coincidentally scheduled for the same day as our Toe Drama, Ainsley says to me, “Mommy how much is the dentist going to cost you?”

Of course she knows that I didn’t take her to the ER because I don’t want to have a bunch of medical bills trickling in. She’s probably pretty thrilled, feeling pretty special and worth-it, because I consented to the X-ray. The last three times a doctor recommended an X-ray or cat scan I refused, explaining we weren’t into spending thousands of dollars “just to rule worst-case scenarios out.”

One of the things I’ve learned to ask is, “what’s the treatment if it’s a positive result?” If the answer is “it will run it’s course and self-correct,” then we forgo the test. It seems illogical – I mean, absurdly unaffordable – in our current system to pay thousands for a diagnosis, when the cure is free. I also ask, “Are there adverse effects if we try an affordable treatment and forgo expensive diagnostics?” If it won’t kill you, radiate you, or give you diarrhea I’m not opposed to trying a little $4 generic medication without knowing for sure. If it works, we know. If it doesn’t, we try the next thing. Okay, I’d even live with diarrhea to avoid expensive medical bills. Who wouldn’t?

But, this was an insurance-covered annual teeth cleaning and we just spent $200 for filling two of the tiniest cavities I’ve ever seen, so I was feeling pretty confident. Until the dentist told me we’d need to schedule two more fillings on the other side.

“When are those two teeth supposed to fall out?” I wanted to know.

“Ten or Twelve, but they’ll cause pain before then. If we yank them we’ll have to add spacers or you’ll pay more for braces,” the dentist explained.

I could tell I’m not the first mom who didn’t want to spend $200 on baby teeth about to be reimbursed $1 from the Tooth Fairy. Who would?

I have health insurance, folks. But, I want to be rich enough to USE my health insurance. This system seems barbaric to me. I want to be able to take my daughter to the hospital without calculating how long it will take us to catch back up.

I don’t think the current private health insurance system is competitive the way a free market should be. I think they’re in cahoots with each other to keep prices elevated. Profit is a sketchy motive to run a health care system on. Are you ordering that test because it makes your corporation more money or are you ordering it because I, or my kids, need it? Unfortunately, over the last few years my faith in my doctor’s recommendations has plummeted. They have corporate quotas. They get bonuses for ordering more tests. They get less money if patients don’t come back a certain number of times. They pass patients around to their friends.

I am for a public plan health care option because I think it will make private insurance companies lower their prices and increase their services. That’s what capitalism is all about: the consumer requiring better performance at better prices. The consumer and the voter are the same person in this scenario.

To be clear: I want to BUY health insurance at a competitive price that middle class Americans can afford to use. My strike-it-rich fantasies include going to the doctor for things like allergy shots that have been prescribed. They include being able to rush my kid to the ER if she needs it. They include visits to the chiropractor, dentist, and dermatologist that I need. They include medical tests I should get, but don’t.

Read about the Massachusetts health care system. Run by a Republican Governor because it’s more economically viable. It’s a trial run of how a universal health care system might work. It’s not uncharted territory. We’re freaking America, People! How is it that we think we can’t manage a better health care system than this? Are we having a crisis of Ego?

We absolutely should – as capitalists - be requiring more than what we’re getting for the 20% of the gross national product we spend on health care.

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