Blessed

One bad sunburn with a huge blister on my teenage chest (dumb to lay in the fog at the beach)! 2 years later, there was a big black mole in the place of the blister. I got it removed at a hospital in 1970. The surgeon said, "It’s out, go enjoy your life". I didn’t question it back then.

I lived my life. I went to college, got married, and had children. In 1999, I found a tiny tiny nodule up in my armpit. The surgeon couldn’t even feel it, so I showed him. It was time for a biopsy. He called me and said, "Pam, I’m sorry. It’s not breast cancer as we thought". My mom had breast cancer. What? Sorry? "Pam, it’s melanoma". NO.

Metastatic melanoma recurrence

We called my husband’s oncologist (as he had had Non-Hodgkins 6 years earlier). I got right in for the removal of all lymph nodes under my arm. Out of 26 nodes, 2 were found to be positive. I woke and my husband told me I had metastatic melanoma, stage III-C. The nasty skin cancer came back after 29 years.

Then my oncologist said, "Pam, you have a 15% chance of living one year". WHAT? No way! He said I needed to start interferon. I had no clue what that was. It was one month of daily infusions then self-administered injections for 11 months. Plus he got me into a 6-year clinical trial (I was and still am scared of needles)! Interferon was no joke. I was not going to quit but believe me it was a ‘challenge’.

Overcoming my skin cancer

It is now 2023 and I feel wonderful. I’ve had a few basal cells and 2 squamous but my job now is educating and advocating safe sun care. I am blessed.