Melanoma Awareness

Hello everyone,

It is amazing to me how people are still confused that a skin cancer can be deadly. Just yesterday someone asked me, "what type of cancer did you have?" and after  I said "melanoma" she said, "skin cancer?"  YES, skin cancer......

SO, I write this post with this in my thoughts: people need to start understanding the REAL dangers of "Skin Cancer." I realize there are more skin cancers out there than melanoma...but my life experience is with this deadly form of skin cancer. The beast MELANOMA.

People need to know that once you develop even a small melanoma on your skin, it can come back at anytime. Many times it does not, but in my case it did. My original melanoma was fall of 2000. It returned in 2010 and was a stage IV by Christmas. We did not know if I was going to live to my 41st birthday in March of 2011.  

Melanoma is one of the HARDEST cancers to beat and is almost always fatal. The statistics are very grim. THANKFULLY there are SO many doctors out there, like Dr. Omid Hamid and his colleagues at the Angeles Clinic and Dr. Morton at the John Wayne Cancer Center who have dedicated their lives to researching this ugly disease and bringing hope to so many of us. Without them I would not be here.

With patience I will do my small part to spread awareness that skin cancer is CANCER. While many people do catch it early and are able to "cut it out" and go on with life, there are many people dying everyday from skin cancer and others battling with every ounce of their beings RIGHT NOW to survive. 

I know there is simply a lot of ignorance about the dangers of the sun and tanning beds. BUT, be warned melanoma, there is an army gathering and we are going to start getting LOUD!!!