By Donna Erickson
“Let’s go tanning!” That was the summer catch phrase in the 1960’s and 70’s, when I was growing up. As tweens and teens, we baked ourselves on the beach, in search of the perfect shade of golden brown. We never thought twice about the possible outcome lurking ahead. My girl friends and I knew nothing about sun damage, skin cancer, or even sunscreen. “Pass the baby oil,” we’d shout to one another. We were shielded only by our ignorance at the time.
Had we known the potential consequences, however, would we have even cared? We had no concept of the future, growing old, or the possible dangers of our self-indulgent habits.
Yet, with all the progress made in this area, the same is true today—even with unmistakable warnings about harmful effects of the sun and UV rays. I see my nieces and others in their age group rushing out to tanning salons before prom dates and bathing suit season.
A few years ago, I hit the pivotal age of fifty. The big 5-0. I began to screen more aggressively for problems with cholesterol, blood pressure, and the like. I woke up one day with the idea of getting a full skin check. I figured, now that I was 50, I owed it to myself. I knew I had a lot of moles, but was under the impression that being olive-skinned gave me extra protection from the sun and reduced my risk for skin cancer.
I made an appointment with a dermatologist and didn’t give it a second thought. After waiting a few weeks, the day of my examination arrived. I was inspected from head to toe, literally--even in between my toes--for suspicious-looking moles. The doctor spotted a few and removed one easily with an instrument right in the office. The others would need to be removed surgically the following week.
I had to wait for the specimens to be biopsied before I could receive the results. The doctor told me not to worry, and I went on with my busy life. When the results came in, they were a bit surprising. All the moles had atypical cells, which meant they could have been or become pre-cancerous. I had a syndrome, which caused me to be prone to abnormal moles. But, one mole on my back was “borderline melanoma.” Amidst the confusion in the office, the nurse told me, on the phone, it was “in situ melanoma.” She was skimming through the report and trying to decipher it. I asked, “Do I have cancer?” Her reply was, “They got it all.”
When I saw my doctor for the follow-up appointment, the confusion was finally clarified. The mole was bordering on in situ melanoma but had not become melanoma yet. The doctor apologized for my ordeal and said she would speak with the nurse. She explained that she could send the specimen to three different labs and get three different reports! “It’s not an exact science,” she said. The doctor scheduled me for further surgery, on my back, to remove all the borders around the affected area.
I found out I had scheduled my initial appointment just in time. “If you had waited a few more months, it would have turned into melanoma,” the doctor said. Funny, isn’t it, how our little feelings can unknowingly lead to life or death decisions? I cringe when I think about the “what if’s.” What if I had waited and not gotten checked? What if I had had no signs or symptoms to warn me? Then, the “would I’s” come to mind. Would I have had melanoma? Would I have had it advance to my lungs, brain, or other body part, as it is known to do?
In my family there happens to be a lot of cancer, but as far as I know, no skin cancer. I am now extremely cautious about being outdoors. I stopped going to the beach, I cover myself in sunscreen, and I avoid the sun whenever I have a choice. Seeing young women with their glowing tans during the winter months irks me. Even those in the health field seem oblivious to the warnings. I was receiving physical therapy for some injuries I sustained in a car accident and was surprised to see my therapist, in her twenties, greet me with a fully tanned body in April. I wanted to grab her and shake her and scream, “What the heck are you doing? You’re in the health field. Don’t you know you shouldn’t be tanning?” But I hesitated and nonchalantly mentioned my experience when it had come up in the course of conversation. “Yuh, I know. I suppose I shouldn’t,” she replied.
Young women. Tanned bodies. Some things will never change.
http://www.dermanetwork.org/news/news_details.asp?ID=550
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3 comments:
My brother had cancer of the skin - the sun caught the bridge of his nose each time he walked on the beach near his home in La Jolla. Whether it was that cancer or another, he was found later to have a cancerous spleen. Finally, after a number of ops he had his whole stomach removed and a new one modelled out of a piece of his large intestine. Just as he was recovering, he picked up a disease that ate away part of the wound. More agonising procedures followed until, after months of severe painy, he finally died. (I wrote a story about it, which finished with a poem concerning my own pain at being unable to ease his suffering and coming to terms with it.) Cancer has taken both parents, two sisters and one of my brothers (the other brother died of a stroke) - if people really knew the horrific suffering that could overtake them, getting a tan, or smoking for that matter, may not seem so important. Dying is one thing, dying in agony is another.
Gladys,
I am so sorry to hear of your family losses. I can relate. Cancer is prevalent in my family. My brave mother endured 5 cancers before leaving this world at age 81. It was a long, drawn-out, agonizing death. It makes you wonder why some are able to go quickly, and others must endure all that pain and suffering. It forces us to face our own mortality, especially as we age and see more family members leave us. I prefer to remember my mother during the good days she had and not the last few when she was transitioning to another existence.
Yes, the sad thing about getting old is loss of family and friends, especially when their end is drawn out and painful. But it must be harder still for parents to lose their children, especially when they have only lived a few years.
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