One day back in summer while washing my hands I noticed what looked to be 'age spots' on the back of my left hand. Light brown circular unraised pigmentation scattered like freckles, largish freckles. I don't know about you but generally, I don't pay attention to the backs of my hands so I didn't know if the spots had just appeared or been there for several days. I then glanced at the back of my right hand. No spots.
I thought without interest, 'Huh.'
Age spots aren't unusual for someone my age. So, beyond checking, whenever I remembered, to see if the right back of the hand was sprouting any spots, I paid no mind to my discovery. Nor did I ponder why age spots would appear on one hand but not the other.
Sometime later -- I can't remember exactly how long, maybe a month or two -- the battery in my wristwatch died. I removed the watch from my left wrist and made a mental note to take the watch to a jeweler to have the battery changed; I prefer to go to a particular store all the way out in Virginia for these battery changes so this is how I have ruined more than one watch because the dead battery sat in there for so long it leaked.
Sometime later -- I can't remember exactly, maybe a week later -- I happened to look down at my hands while I was washing them.
All the age spots on the back of my left hand had vanished.
From the time I first noticed the spots until they were gone there had been no change in my routine, no change in the soap I used, and I don't use hand lotion unless it's the dead of winter and my hands start feeling like sandpaper, but this hadn't been the case during the period in question.
The spirit of scientific inquiry be darned; no way am I going to put a wristwatch with a working battery back on my wrist to see if age spots reappear on the back of my hand. I am already doing a stint as a human lab rat. Blood pressure medication nearly put me in the hospital so then I said, 'I'll do it myself,' not having any idea at the time how much research and experimentation the DIY approach to lowering blood pressure would entail.
Nor do I have the time or interest in looking into whether wearable digital technology can have unusual effects on the body.
Could it have been a coincidence? Maybe. Then again it could've been God's way of saying, 'Do not wear a machine you know nothing about for hours every day for years on end, fool.'
Take your pick. I've made my choice. Whenever I get to the jewelry store in Virginia, I'll be shopping for a watch that needs to be wound once a day to work. And I think I'll be carrying the watch in my purse rather than wearing it when I go out, which was the only time I wore a watch anyhow.
But I will venture that if there is a connection between the battery and the spots, this showed up only during my Golden Years, and obviously, they weren't exactly age spots even though they looked just like age spots.
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