Casualties of War, Historically Speaking

I know there are people out there surviving melanoma, living long lives. But the stories of those who aren't winning, those who have lost their earthly battle, seem to encompass my thoughts and weigh heavy on my heart. Please keep Josh Kell in your prayers, as his battle is becoming more difficult. He and his wife just got married in August. You can access his website in the lower right corner of this page.

One thing I haven't done is include a history of melanoma itself. I find it quite interesting, and discouraging, really, knowing that so many other diseases have long since been wiped off the face of the earth, yet melanoma lingers with no end in sight.

A 1960's examination of Peruvian Inca mummies, radiocarbon dated to be over 2400 years old, showed signs of melanoma, with masses in the skin and metastases to the bones.

Melanoma was first reportedly operated on in 1787. It was not known at the time to be melanoma, but was preserved in a museum. Upon close examination back in 1968, the tumor was identified as melanoma.

A French physician Rene Laennec first presented findings of melanoma in Paris in 1804. Later in the mid-1800's, an English practitioner first reported there to be familial predisposition to developing melanoma. And then in 1840, Samuel Cooper was the first to acknowledge that advanced melanoma is untreatable. He stated that the '... only chance for benefit depends upon the early removal of the disease ...'

More than one and a half centuries later this situation remains largely unchanged.

It is estimated that the rate of melanoma will increase to 1:50 by 2010. No matter how minor, this disease seems to advance at an unknown and unpredictable rate, and a reason no easier to follow that Russian roulette. Just this past week, another melanoma patient...he was stage 1 in 1999, stage 3 in 2001 and stage 4 in 2007...and dead in 2008. Brian was stage 2 at one point.

It scares the hell out of me to know that after 150 years, someone's best chance at beating melanoma still lies in early detection, as nothing else has been discovered. I hope and pray that in my lifetime, a cure might be found for this disease that has seemed to linger for a century and a half, killing its victims at an alarming rate. This is just one more example of the complexity of cancer research. Each cancer is essentially its own disease. With any luck, there are some links between cancers that allow researchers a jump off point in which to make connections with causes and treatments. Beyond that, each cancer needs and deserves the same effort and gusto behind the biggies, like breast and colon and lung and leukemia and...

Oh wait, those cancers are still killing people too.

So are we winning the war? When it feels like we aren't, which is usually, then I think about those fighting to win, the teacher at my school who just finished beating her second round of cancer; my friend's aunt who is doing well after her treatments for myeloma; a girl I know who is gone to college after fighting cancer as a little girl.

I guess the winning and the losing still just has too much of a gap, and I can only hope and pray that the history of melanoma will change soon, along with all the other cancers. We are all too precious, too loved by our families, to be lost in this war. Those that have lost their lives can only have hoped, as I know Brian did, to have made a mark on their disease that might keep someone else from suffering their fate.

So despite the casualties, we'll keep fighting...