The Sunburn Ordeal

After spending a few months in New Zealand I was able to stop by Fiji on my way to Los Angeles for a twenty-dollar connection fee. I figured that it may be the only time when I’d be able to stop in Fiji for twenty dollars, so I booked in a four-day layover. Most of my time was spent on a little island just north of the main island. It was beautiful, with long, crescent-moon beaches, lots of coconuts, lots of sun, and plenty of hammocks. The snorkeling was world-class, and my second day on the island I rented a snorkel, mask, and pair of fins, slapped on some sunscreen, and snorkeled the day away. When I got out of the water for the last time and got ready to head in for dinner, my back felt a little warm.

When I got back to my room I realized my sunburn was worse than I thought. My back was pink, with a few lighter splotches where I managed to get on a little bit better coat of sunscreen. I tossed on a shirt and went to dinner, but by the time I went to bed my sunburn was keeping me plenty warm; if I laid on my back it felt like I was lying on a heated blanket.

By the next morning my sunburn was so bad it was almost purple, and a week later I was peeling sheets of dead, peeling skin off of my back. I should have known better. Sunburn is the leading cause of skin cancer in adults, and each successive burn raises the odds that you’ll have skin cancer. When I went snorkeling, slapping on a little bit of sunscreen wasn’t nearly enough. Not only was my back exposed to the sun for the entire day, the water washed off sunscreen (even waterproof sunscreen) quickly, leaving my skin open for damage. I should have been reapplying sunscreen every couple of hours or, even better, keeping my back covered with a t-shirt despite my desire to come home with a golden Fijian tan.

Once my back was sunburned I took a number of steps to treat it. Sunburn, like its name suggests, is in fact a burn, just as you would get from putting your hand on a hot stove. I treated it with pure aloe, an age-old treatment for wounds and burns. I also made sure to apply some moisturizer, since one of the biggest effects of sunburn is that it makes your skin extremely dry. Though my back eventually peeled, the damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been since I took steps to treat my burn.