Fear not, bloggees!  This is not a scene from a chamber of horrors, it is your Florida correspondent undergoing (i.e. suffering through) photodynamic therapy (PDT) .  Yes, the guy who squandered taxpayers dollars by the millions pretending to “study” PDT is now on the receiving end of it, and it is not pretty.  I took this photo of myself with my trusty blackberry during my exposure to the BLU (trade mark) light.

Why am I doing this?  Like many people of advanced years with my skin coloration and little or no hair to protect from solar energy, I have developed actinic keratoses on my scalp and upper ears.  These little devils are not dangerous if you have them treated.  For several years now I have been visiting a dermatologist every 6 months or so to have these precancerous lesions removed, and the guy in Bowling Green used to spray the affected areas with liquid nitrogen.  He would do this until I screamed in agony and then do it some more.  Well, I wanted to get the treatment in November when I was there after my Italy sojourn, but he was too busy to see me in the narrow time window I was offering, so Erika, of Erika and Alex, put me in touch with her dermo, one David Bracciano, here in Sarasota.  I went over there last December and he did the usual liquid nitrogen torture, but at the end of it he asked whether I was interested in having this PDT treatment.  An of course, being a renowned PDT scientist, I jumped at the offer.  In this he (or rather his assistant) rubs a preparation of levulinic acid onto your scalp and upper ears.  You then sit around for about 2 hours to generate some porphyrins, I suppose, after which you are invited to sit under this carapace which has the blue light tubes in it, as you see in the photo. And then they turn it on and a new torture begins and goes on for 16 bloody minutes!!!

They warn you up front that it might sting a little-a giant piece of understatement.  It stings a lot and burns like hell-pure agony.  Water-boarding has nothing on this and after a few seconds I was prepared to sign any confession to make it stop!  They should take it to Guantanamo where it will work wonders, I am sure.  Anyway, I endured it, thinking of all those singlet oxygen molecules running around my scalp, doing lots of photo-oxidation in all  the right places.  I have to stay out of the sun and wear a hat and sunblock for a couple of days to obviate unwanted photosensitization.  And there you have it, and the insurance picks up the bill, what a wonderful life it is.

To the next installment…