The Devastation Continues

Tornadic weather killed 10 in Missouri and Oklahoma today. The destruction is devastating, once again. The pictures show debris strewn for miles. Families are heartbroken over a beast that can never be controlled. Many see these pictures and vow to take cover when severe weather approaches. We take precautions to do everything we can to protect our families. Again, there is no guarantee; but we still try, and there are countless stories of people emerging from a basement after a tornado to find their house gone...but they are alive.

Melanoma alone killed an estimated 24 people today. This tragic event did not make the news because it happens like this every day. There is no death toll listed on the news nightly for melanoma deaths, even though roughly 25,000 Americans have been lost to melanoma since the war in Iraq began.

My husband was one of them.

Jackie's husband Herb was one of those lost to melanoma this morning after coming home in hospice from MD Anderson this past week.

Again, this blog is not to put melanoma up against the sacrifices of our American soldiers, or make those lost in a tornado seem insignificant. I am just trying to point out this often downplayed disease that killed my husband and devastated our family. Like the families of our soldiers, I don't want Brian's death to be in vain.

So like you would run to the basement in severe weather, or put your seatbelt on when you are in a vehicle, or you would make your kid wear a bike helmet...like you would teach your child about Internet safety and stranger danger and safety with electricity and not to drink and drive...

...teach them to be safe in the sun...and protect your families from melanoma and other skin cancers. Don't make light of this. I would never have imagined that I would be spending my days flying kites at a cemetery with a 4 year old because melanoma robbed us of a future with Brian.