Guest blog post from a 27 year old local Edmonton woman. Please heed her warnings and protect yourself and your children from the sun.
Hi, my name is Erin and I have a story to tell you. I am a fair skinned person with lots of moles. When I was 18 I thought my pale skin was unattractive and that I needed a tan. People would say I was pasty and needed a “healthy” glow. I believed these stupid people. So I started tanning in
tanning beds, and lying out in the sun without protection trying to get some color, which I could never get much… but I kept trying. I thought if I went more and used tanning accelerators that maybe I’d get darker. I felt myself becoming addicted to the good feeling you get after using a tanning bed. I would crave the warmth and light. So, for three years, I would go in spurts, try for months to tan, then stop, then months later start again… until I finally stopped because I thought it was a waste of money, and in the back of my mind I wondered if I had done enough damage to my skin that I would pay for it later…. Little did I know what was in store for me.
I had a mole on my leg that was large, and people like my mom and boyfriend all said it looked weird; I thought so too but didn’t think it was a big deal. They urged me to get it taken off. So I did. Eventually.
DECEMBER 15TH, 2010
The dermatologist who took off my mole said they’d call if there were any problems with the mole. First thing I heard that morning ten days before Christmas was my phone ringing. I answer in a haze. It’s the dermatologist. The conversation went like this: Hi Erin, can you come to my office today? No, I can’t, I have to go to work… Ok well grab a pen then.
You have Melanoma. I just wrote it down and kept writing everything he said.
I was so shocked I didn’t really hear him, just wrote down what he said. I had to go the next day to get a chest x-ray and two ultrasounds to make sure that the melanoma hadn’t spread to my organs. I found out later that day that it hadn’t, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. But my cancer journey wasn’t over yet, in fact, it was just beginning. I was then referred to a melanoma doctor at the U of A. He told me I had a stage one melanoma and that they would remove flesh around where the mole was and then biopsy a lymph node in my upper leg to be sure the cancer hadn’t spread to my lymph nodes.
February 4th I had my surgery. Ten days later I go in to my surgeons. They found cancer in the lymph node they removed. They said I now have stage 3 Cancer. My chances just went down to about 65%. I crumbled and cried for the first time in fear of my disease. I wondered if I was going to make it to my 28th birthday. I wondered if I’d survive long enough to have a family one day. I cried, I was scared, I sat on regrets. I was then told that I would have to have all the lymph nodes around the one that was malignant removed. I was told it would be a big undertaking.
Two weeks later I had the surgery, what they call “Radical groin lymph node dissection.” Sounds scary and it is. I had two tubes coming out of me when I woke up, one on my hip and one in my lower abdomen, and a serious amount of pain in my hip and upper leg. I lay in a hospital bed for four days, unable to go to the bathroom without the help of a nurse and high on morphine to relieve the pain, I cried at night about my uncertain future.
After my recovery from my surgery, I was then referred to an oncologist, a cancer doctor at the Cross Cancer institute. I grew up in the neighborhood where this scary place is and I always thought that other people go there, not me or my family. No, I wouldn’t know anyone who’d have to go there for treatment, not me. He said I should do a year of Interferon, a drug that “interferes” with cancer cells to slow down or kill them. I was told I’d have to go in five days a week for four weeks for IV Treatments and then I would go on to the “maintenance” part of my treatment, 3 shots a week from home with a “pen” for 48 weeks.
The first week of interferon I walk into the cross and I am told to go to the main Chemo room. It wasn’t until then that I realized I was a Cancer patient. I was here to have Chemotherapy. What everyone fears. I was nervous but dove head first into my treatments. I wrote a little calendar to mark off the days and called it “Chemo countdown.” I lost 15 pounds in two weeks. I couldn’t eat. I had a horrible taste in my mouth for the whole four weeks. I had to give up drinking, and caffeine, and I fought the urge to puke 24 hours a day. I felt weak all over. In my whole body, from head to toe I was exhausted. I slept everyday after my treatments, and couldn’t keep my eyes open after 9:00 pm, and would do it all the next day, endless day in day out of the same, feeling sick physically, mentally, and emotionally. Waking up and crying. Just crying.
But then deciding to soldier on and get this sh*t over with. Once I thought I wanted to just quit. I thought I couldn’t do it. Then after thinking about it all weekend I thought, no, I will finish this off. And I did. I am now in month 3 of my at home treatments. I feel a bit better but some days are still hard, I have mornings where I have no appetite and days, sometimes weeks where I am completely exhausted, where I can hardly stand up I am so weak and tired, and it is a far cry from the girl I used to be. I went back to work part time, and even that is too much sometimes.
I used to have a busy life and at the age of 27 I’ve had to slow down more than I’d think I’d have to till my 70’s. I never imagined I’d spend a year in my 20’s fighting a disease like melanoma, and now looking back there was a lot I could have done to prevent it. Melanoma is a disease you can see on your skin. Most cancer quietly grows inside of you and doesn’t give you any warning signs until it is too late. Melanoma can be caught early, but if it isn’t caught until it spreads to your organs your chances are less than 10% that you’ll survive 5 years.
Please think about me next time you hop in a tanning bed. I was just like you.
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