Good News

So, May is skin cancer awareness month. Every hour, someone dies from it. Melanoma is the 2nd most common cancer in woman 25-29. 1 in 5 Americans will get skin cancer, and 1 in 3 Caucasians. Maybe you knew that -- I sure didn't.

I do know that lot of people think skin cancer is no big deal, and there are certainly kinds that grow slowly, and probably won't kill you. Melanoma, however, is big effing deal. If you don't catch it in time, it can be bad news.

When I was 16, my Dad was diagnosed with melanoma.  He's a pale guy, with lots of moles, and he had a big one on his chest that turned all wonky. My mother basically forced him to go to the doctor. It was a good thing she did, too. He was given an 85% chance of recovery, because they thought they had caught it fairly early. But he still had to undergo major surgery to remove the cancer, and to see if it had invaded his lymph nodes. He was under the knife for 8 hours. Now that I'm an adult, I often think how hard this must have been on my mother.

When my father got out of surgery, he had a huge scar on his chest, but he didn't have cancer any more, thanks to my mother's nagging, an extremely talented oncologist, and some damn good luck. Every single day I feel blessed and grateful that I am 31 years old and I still have both of my parents around to aggravate me.

So a week ago, I had a mole removed. It's a mole I've had all my life, and now that it's gone, I rather miss it. It was under my arm, where my bra strap hit, and it was a really lovely mole, brown and symetrical and just raised enough to look like a proper beauty mark.

Until last year, when I noticed that it looked...weird. Very weird. Swollen and bloody and weird.

I went right off to the doctor, who said she didn't think it looked too problematic -- that it was probably just irritated by my bra -- but she did want to take off a mole on my back. She decided to shave down my underarm mole, so it wouldn't get aggravated anymore.

When the pathology results from both moles came back, surprise, surprise: the one on the back was fine. The mole she had shaved was abnormal, although the margins were clear.

Then about two weeks ago, I noticed that this mole -- the one she had shaved -- had grown back. I was going to the doctor anyway, so while I was there asking her about my thyroid condition [jacked up again] and my allergies [ditto], I showed her the mole.

"Hmmmm. Let's get that off," she said, and hustled me into another exam room to take the whole sucker out this time. [It was a great visit. I also got a shot!]

So I spent the whole week worrying, of course.

And today she called and said -- starting off her message by telling me that everything was FINE, bless her -- that the mole HAD been "atypical," so she was glad we took it off, but that the margins were clear, and we needed no further course of action. That we had handled it just the right way.

I'm very relieved, of course. Very very very.

See, my dad had melanoma the summer I was 16, but so did the father of one of my sister's friends. My sister was only 2 at the time, and this man was 36 or so -- barely older than I am now.

He was sick for six months.

He died.

I think about that a lot, how much the luck of the draw affects us all. I don't know why I was lucky enough to get to keep my father, and why my sister's friends -- 2 and 8 years old -- lost theirs. The reason for that is not mine to understand, of course, and I can't imagine it is something that can be understood in this life.

But I also think about how this disease, unlike so many others, is preventable and cureable if you catch it soon it enough. I am pretty sure that this is not the last mole I am going to have to have taken off, and I know that I am going to have to be vigilant about it for the rest of my life -- more vigilant than I have been in the past, I think.  I'm asking my doctor if she thinks I should start visiting a dermotologist for quarterly skin scans, and I'm going to continue to wear sunscreen when I go to the beach, and I'm going to continue to wear a hat, and I'm going to continue to not really go to the beach all that often, and I'm going to start wearing sunscreen on my exposed area every day.  Every single day.

It's simply not that hard. Easier, I imagine, than quitting smoking.

So the end of this long, unamusing entry is this, dear readers: please, please take care of yourself so that you can be my readers for a very long time. Please keep an eye on your moles, and get them checked out if they look weird: either you're fine, or you caught the thing, you know? Wear your damn sunscreen when you go outside (if you don't care about dropping dead, then think of the WRINKLES. Do you want to look like a catcher's mitt when you're 46?). Take care of yourself. Learn more about skin cancer.

And that's the end of my May Is Skin Cancer Awareness Month Lecture.

Comments

[Gwen]

I have now been officially scared into calling the dermatologist tomorrow. Which is good, because I have a couple new moles that, while small, are raised, which is a bit alarming. Yikes.

[Catherine]

I am so relieved to know you are okay. My friend had some (non-cancerous) moles removed, and she is just as vigilant in taking care of herself. Sunscreen, everyone - sunscreen!

[Demi]

Last summer a close friend of mine noticed a "wart" on her foot. She decided not to have it removed until the end of the summer because she didnt want to miss out on the couple of weeks worth of boating fun. By the time she got around to the dermo in September to get it removed, the cancer had spread into 1/4 of her foot. She has spent the rest of the year recovering from reconstructive surgery and learing how to walk again. Thankfully, the cancer is gone. She is only 32.

Moles, growths, and warts are not always normal. Dont be afraid to have them checked out by a Dr.

[jen]

thanks for this, my dad died of melanoma as well, as did two of his siblings and a third has it now -- this kind grew on the back of their eyes, so the only way to find it is to have your eyes dilated. Yes, scary. Yes, I should start getting this done yearly. (no, I haven't yet.)

[Jessica]

Jen, I didn't know that. I'm so sorry to hear it.

[Kelly]

It runs on my mom's side of the family. I cover myself in loads of sunblock every day. Especially since I live in very sunny, Texas.

[Beth]

I started going in for just-about-yearly checks a couple years ago. I'm also trying to remember to wear sunscreen everyday, mostly just because I am so F-ing pale I can burn on my lunch hour. It's amazing how often I forget, though. I've started keeping a big ol' bottle of Lubriderm SPF 15 on my desk at work so when I sit down and think, "dang, forgot the sunscreen." at least I can put it on at my desk.

[sara]

So, so, SO important. I am only 25, but after a big scare from my best friend's cousin several summers ago, I sunscreen my pale irish skin like there's no tomorrow. I shudder when I think of the summers I was 17 and 18...out at the beach every day with no sunscreen ON PURPOSE, so that I would get tan. Those days are no more. Any color on my skin is courtesy of Jergens. The better chance of a long life beats out a great tan any day.

[maire]

Great post. Just as a public service, anything that bleeds or doesn't go away should be checked. Basal cell carcinoma, while not fatal may leave you scarred. I had what I thought was a pimple but required surgery, skin graft, etc. Check yourself!

[Vaguely Urban]

I'll see your annual screening and raise you a mole mapping. It's my annual humbling, standing more or less naked in front of my dermatologist as he takes digital photos of every angle of my moley body. The idea is that the photos can be compared to catch moles gone wild, and perhaps also spare me unnecessary removals. Bottom line - I'll take a little humiliation over melanoma.

[meghan]

Thanks so much for posting this - both my mother and my aunts have moles and basal cells removed fairly frequently and I just had a mole removed for the first time just after my eighteenth birthday. I'm constantly trying to get friends to understand that no, seriously, I do need to apply sunscreen every few hours and yes, tanning could very well kill me. It's great to see someone other than myself spreading awareness.

[Ally]

I've also had moles removed--one of them "atypical"--which luckily came back fine. I never even realized I had moles on my back until I went to my fabulous doctor who saw them and wanted them removed. My dermatologist said that it was from sunburns that I got as a kid, since now I avoid the sun like Dracula. Thanks for this entry Jessica!

[Scarlett]

When I was ten, my mother noticed that I had a mole inside my elbow that hadn't been there the previous summer. She took me straight to the dermatologist, who took it out (and a good hunk of my inner arm with it). It was cancer.

When I was fourteen, the mole by my lip doubled in size in four months. Dermatologist. Surgery. Cancer. (Of the FACE. As a TEENAGER. It was very distressing, although I am fine now, and only have a teeny, weeny scar that you can hardly see.)

And, y'all, I WEAR sunscreen. I've worn it every day since that first time, when I was ten. And still, it's just...a nightmare. So I'm just going to mention that, yes, while sunscreen is definitely the way to go, you also need to be super-vigilant about tracking your moles, and having the bad ones removed. And be sure to have someone else keep an eye out, too - I have a friend who had an atypical (although thankfully non-cancerous) growth on her genital area. Which is not so much something you'd see yourself.

[Sarah]

I also wear sunscreen daily and to the beach and yes it makes me uncool but clearly it could save my life. I lather up with the high spf stuff too. Thanks for the lecture! Maybe someone will take heart and also start to sunscreen up.

[LEVI]

well im not that lucky my dad has malanoma and im only 12 man he my dad it makes me sad to think about it