Mission: Melanoma Awareness

Well, I failed my mission to find a way to save Brian from melanoma. I know what many of you are thinking...but even so, I suffer from this profound feeling of failure. I guess I thought educating ourselves and being proactive would make some difference. In the end, my 35 year old husband is dead. As far as I'm concerned, his death certificate should read "homicide victim", maybe even read "slowly tortured". I am not at all downplaying the devastation caused by an actual murder. Nonetheless, Brian's death was a senseless killing by an evil beast that needs to be stopped, a different type of serial killer. It doesn't care how old you are or how rich or poor you are or how many people love you or how much you are needed here on earth.

It has been a month today...a part of me is gone, a piece of me is forever lost. I search for a purpose again. I know I have duties and people who count on me. I know I can still do good things. I am just searching for direction. My melanoma mission is not over. I could go on and on about sunscreen, but I think a lot of people ignore those warnings and my voice would come across like Charlie Brown's teacher...you know...whah whah! And I don't believe that Brian's melanoma was necessarily sun related...instead genetic and not seeking treatment soon enough. My goal with myself and my own children is to avoid getting burned and to always wear sunscreen and reapply as needed. To me, that is actually common sense that I should have been following ahead of time. I can't change those who enjoy that sunny glow this time of year and choose to believe that melanoma can't touch them. I feel almost as if that is an argument that falls on deaf ears, that those who are impacted by Brian's story already have made their decision to be sunwise, and everyone else believes they're invincible. The fact is, there are many people who will worship the sun and never see the likes of melanoma.

So my mission is more on awareness and skin checks. Brian left a mole on his leg that bled often. He did not have it checked for over 2 years. Could this have made the difference? It is likely that Brian would still be here. On the other hand, his doctor reminded us many times that the DNA makeup of his melanoma was a strong one. Brian blamed himself up to his death for being a stupid college kid who thought cancer would never be a part of his vocab.

So for this, I find myself pushing more for awareness of skin checks. There are lots of you out there who have gone to have spots checked out or removed because of Brian. More than one of those has come back melanoma. Several were found to be precancerous, several found to be nothing. Melanoma is considered almost 100% curable if found early. Melanoma made the news today in a Time magazine article. I have copied and pasted it below.

Time.com
CNN.com

Scalp, Neck Skin Cancers Most Lethal
Monday, Apr. 21, 2008 By ALICE PARK

Not all melanomas are created equal. That's the conclusion of a study by University of North Carolina researchers who found that skin cancers can vary in lethality depending on where they start.

After analyzing an exhaustive dataset of over 50,000 cases of melanoma in the US that were diagnosed between 1992 and 2003, the scientists, led by Dr. Nancy Thomas, a dermatologist, discovered to their surprise that patients with lesions in the scalp and neck died almost twice as fast after diagnosis as those whose tumors started anywhere else on the body. "The results really did surprise us," says Thomas. "For a long time, there has been a lot of controversy over whether all head and neck melanomas had worse survival, and this study shows a large difference in survival for scalp and neck tumors." Interestingly, cancers of the face and ear, other common locations for melanoma, were not linked to reduced survival. In fact, cancers starting in these areas actually had better prognosis than those beginning in the trunk or extremities, which usually have the best survival rates.

Thomas' study was not designed to tease out why these scalp and neck lesions are particularly dangerous, but she notes that those areas are crisscrossed with extensive lymph and blood vessels — such networks can make it easier for cancer cells to both grow and spread. Dr. Vijay Trisal, a cancer specialist at City of Hope National Medical Center in Los Angeles, also notes that these areas receive the most sun exposure; "The maximum sun exposure areas are to the scalp, face and neck," he says. "so it makes sense biologically that cancers here would be different from those in areas that rarely see sunlight."

Thomas also acknowledges that at least part of the reason for the worse survival could be related to the fact that scalp lesions are harder to detect, and less likely to be screened, given that in most cases, the region is covered with hair. But even this can't explain the entire trend. "There is something independent of the screening that is going on that we don't really understand at this point," Thomas says.

But even without such an explanation, the findings highlight the importance of proper screening. As part of any skin exam, say Thomas and Trisal, the scalp should be no different than any other part of the body; in fact, as this study shows, they should probably be the first place doctors and patients look.