My Christmas Wish List

When I was a kid, my Christmas wish list was mainly for toys I thought I just had to have. See it on a commercial on television? I wanted it. Did one of my friends have it? I figured I should, too. I spent hours going through the Sears Roebuck and J.C. Penney Christmas catalogs, looking for things to add to my wish list. As a teenager, I my wish list changed to clothes and record albums (I’m showing my age here). Once I was an adult and had kids of my own, I knew that I was far more fulfilled by giving than receiving. While I love every gift my kids give me, I sometimes find it difficult to come up with a Christmas wish list for me now.

New perspective

As a SkinCancer.net moderator, I love interacting with our community members. However, reading the numerous comments online from our community members about their experiences with skin cancer, and reading of their friends and family members they’ve lost from skin cancer, can be heartbreaking. If Santa Claus asked me what I want for Christmas this year, this would be my wish:

Wishing for no more skin cancer

I wish that the surgical excision I had this morning would be the last skin cancer area that I have, ever.

Wishing people would take skin cancer seriously

I wish that people would take skin cancer seriously. It’s not ‘just skin cancer’. People can and do die from skin cancer, and the more people who believe this, the less loss we will have.  Over the last 30 years, more people have been diagnosed with skin cancer than all other cancers combined.¹ That, my friends, is serious business.

Wishing for better sun habits

I wish that people would not only believe that skin cancer is a real thing, but that they practice better sun awareness. Good sun habits can go a long way toward preventing skin cancer.

Wishing tanning beds would be banned

I wish that tanning beds would be completely banned. This is a huge wish, so I’m willing (just for a short while, though) to settle for the wish that stricter laws are enacted to prevent tanning bed use by minors and to try to prevent daily usage by patrons.

Wishing for a cure and support for all with cancer

I wish that a cure would be found for every kind of skin cancer.

I wish that skin cancer would become a thing of the past, something that is no longer a prevalent, deadly disease.

I wish a double dose of encouragement and hope for all who are battling skin cancer.

And finally, I wish that 2018 brings all of us, and our friends and family, peace, contentment, joy, and good health.