Could you have skin cancer?

My skin sidelined me this summer.

Two months into Florida Crew's off-season training plan, a trip to the dermatologist pulled me out of the gym and off of the water.

After six years of checkups and more than 20 suspicious moles removed and sent to the lab only to come back negative for skin cancer, my luck ran out.

“Do you have a few minutes to chat?” asked the nurse over the phone.

She told me three of the four spots I had removed at my checkup two weeks earlier were precancerous. Each would need to be surgically removed.

The American Cancer Society identifies two main types of skin cancer: keratinocyte cancers (basal and squamous cell skin cancers) and melanomas. I was diagnosed with dysplastic nevi, a third classification of irregular moles that can turn into melanoma.

When I began seeing a dermatologist in high school, before I ever thought about gynecologists and while I still visited my pediatrician for sports physicals and yearly checkups, I thought the precaution was silly, an unnecessary infringement on my invaluable teenage time.

“You look like you spend a fair amount of time in the sun, huh?” asked my new doctor, a fair-skinned woman with blonde hair and blue eyes just like me, someone who I never imagined I’d eventually be seeing four times a year.

With a glance at my freckled skin, a sign of sun damage I came to love about myself, Dr. Hughes told me she wanted to do a full-body exam.

These exams continued every year, then every six months, then every three once I was classified as a "high risk" patient by my doctor.

In July, Dr. Hughes removed all three precancerous moles. She made four-inch long incisions deep into my epidermis, the outer layer of skin. I had two rows of stitches on each area -- two were located on my right thigh and one was on my upper back.

Each was a little smaller than a pencil eraser and light brown. None looked any different than my other moles. And if I hadn't been receiving regular screenings, each could have developed into melanoma, the most common type of cancer in the U.S.

The surgeries, while minor, kept me out of the gym for a month, and left me with large scars that will take years to disappear.

According to my dermatologist, athletes in Florida are particularly susceptible to skin cancer at a young age. While most people don't begin to see a dermatologist for skin cancer screenings until well into adulthood, she said men and women who spent a majority of their childhood in the sun playing sports should go once a year beginning in high school.

I started the fall rowing season out of shape and with injuries that limited my participation at practice. But the more precautions I take now against skin cancer -- a rapidly spreading, aggressive, incurable and painful disease -- the less likely my life will be cut short.

Even if you don't fall into a high risk group for skin cancer (fair skin, blue eyes), it only takes two to three bad childhood sunburns to greatly increase your chance of developing the disease. Here's a YouTube video from Howcast that explains how to check yourself for skin cancer.

If you find a suspicious mole (one that is asymmetrical, has irregular borders, has inconsistent coloring or is abnormally large), make an appointment to see a dermatologist just in case.

Visit the American Academy of Dermatology's Web site to search for a doctor near you.