Grumpy Me

If you see a resemblance to Grumpy Cat when you look at me now, it is due to a condition called melasma, which causes dark patches to appear on one's face, especially on the cheeks.

Melasma, not to be confused with the singing style known as melisma, can just show up. I think mine may have had something to do with a walk I took downtown on a bitterly cold day last winter. Afterwards, my face became so dry that the skin began peeling off. I bought every moisturizer to be had at Walgreen's and even went to Westfield ready to pay big bucks for some Kiehl's skin cream.

Being confined to a dark front room all winter and not having use of my enclosed porch with 10 windows might also have had some effect. A doctor found my Vitamin D so depleted that she ordered me to take 50,000 units of Vitamin D for 12 weeks.

I noticed the dark patches in April.

Googling around brought out the notion that it could be related to my hypothyroidism. But that began in 1999, so why now? The bottom line seemed to be that whatever the cause, it might not go away. Covering it up was touted as perhaps the best strategy, so I set foot in Ulta for the first time in my life and bought some very pricey makeup.

Recently a dermatologist checked it out and blamed it on "sun," which didn't really gibe with being indoors through months of cold and ice. She quickly moved on to more fun things like zapping other blemishes with a nitrogen gun.

So now when I look at the stuffed Grumpy Cat that I bought last year for Mau to play with, I still see a reflection of grumpy me. Just one of life's little jokes, I guess.

--Bernice