Getting askin cancer diagnosiscan be surprising and life-changing.
Skin cancer can be sneaky and easy to miss.
SELF spoke with five different women about what it’s like to have skin cancer.
Andreas Kuehn
Some are still battling the disease today, while others haven’t had a recurrence in years.
My dermatologist started discovering basal cells when I was around 14.
They started popping up frequently.
www.johncicioraphotography.com
Every time I went back for an acne treatment, I ended up having more frozen off.
In my 20s I didnt wear hats or swim shirts, I didnt care.
I still spent days at the lake and let myself get burned.
One of the drags is having to go to so many appointments.
I could spend two or three times in a two or three week period going to a derm.
Most of the time when theyre taken off theyre teeny tiny places.
Some are frozen, and some require stitches and leave scars.
I just recently had two taken off my scalp.
I wear sunscreen all the time, every day.
I scheduled an appointment with my family’s dermatologist, who took a sample to be safe.
I got a call a few days later saying I needed to come in.
He said, Its melanoma, its really serious.
After a month or two in treatment, they saw it went to my liver.
That kind of changed everything.
He told me I may not even have a year to live.
I went through a series of treatments around the U.S. Mostly all IV concoctions of different drugs.
It wasn’t traditional chemo, that doesn’t work with melanoma.
All of 2007 I was stable.
Theyd scan me and nothing seemed to be changing.
Then, in the spring of 2008, it spread to my lungs.
I went to Chicago for a clinical trial.
I lost my hair, and I didnt know ahead of time it would never grow back.
I was on that drug for over a year; they could see the tumors reducing to virtually nothing.
Fall of the following year I got some leg pain.
I thought I had pulled a muscle.
It got worse, so I called my doctor.
They did a full body scan and saw a tumor the size of an apple in my thigh.
So they stopped that drug right away.
They were perplexed how it could help one part of body and not other.
Long story short, they told me there was nothing more they could do.
They gave me a prescription for pain pills and said, Sorry.
A doctor in Boston was running a clinical trial I might qualify for.
I called and ended up going.
My first scan three weeks after starting, the tumor in my leg had shrunken in half.
I took it for six months, until August 2010.
Then they removed what was left of the tumor.
I haven’t been on any drugs since then.
Its crazy, my doctors can’t explain why I am where I am.
I always get full-body scans now, I learned my lesson.
I do have hard days.
There are days I miss my hair, like when I’m getting dressed up for a wedding.
But I have to remember to put things in perspective.
Then the one on my nose started to act differently.
All the others were flat and not very deep.
This one was going deep into my nose, into the fatty tissue of the cheek area.
It was getting extremely painful, and when I put makeup on it would burn.
The top wouldnt heal.
If you touched it, it would start bleeding.
None of the others bled.
I just knew something wasn’t right.
He decided to put me on oral medication.
I started the treatment in December 2014 and took it for about six months.
I had horrible leg cramps.
One thing that was great, though, was I didnt have to shave my legs and armpits.
Life is too short.
I’m not going to let it get in my way of enjoying things.
I just went to the lake Saturday.
I double-check I’m all covered up and wear a lot of sunscreen.
I had a white spot above my lip that would occasionally appear and bleed and then go away.
I figured it was just acne.
The dermatologist looked at it and said it looked like skin cancer.
I thought he was joking or being extreme.
He took a biopsy and it was, in fact, basal cell carcinoma.
I had to have MOHs surgery.
I was left with a very large hole in my face.
A bandage was placed over it and we walked two blocks to the plastic surgeon.
I believe it took 32 or 34 stitches.
I also used a topical scar healing gel and SPF every day.
I used to run outside almost every day.
For the past few years I have had to run inside on a treadmill.
Even with sunscreen it sweats off so I have to be careful.
I get paranoid driving in the car, because you might still get sun through the glass.
I found a spot on my cheek that we thought was a zit or mole.
When he said cancer I just sort of shut down.
The biopsy said it was melanoma.
When you look at my face now, you’re able to’t tell.
We caught it early enough that they got all of it.
After the melanoma was removed, I still went to the beach.
I would venture to cover up and use sunscreen, but still got some sun.
Nothing like how I used to use baby oil and bake, sometimes getting blistering burns.
But I wasn’t faithful about seeing a dermatologist.
It was easier to avoid the fear and emotion that comes with it.
Last year, my dermatologist found 15 different spots.
Some were just age spots, the rest were basal cell carcinoma.
I wasnt thrilled about removing them and leaving scars, so he suggested a new chemo pill.
I started to see clumps in the drain.
I went from having thick hair to being 95 percent bald, so dealing with that was tough.
Losing your hair changes you, as a woman.
I lost my eyelashes, too.
I enjoy wine and good food and all of a sudden, food had no taste.
I chose not to eat some of my favorite foods so I wouldnt dislike them later.
The chemo pills knocked out about 70 percent of the growths.
I have five different spots right now, I’m not sure what they are.
My doctor might have to freeze off some, but he doesnt think he has to do surgery again.
Hes teaching me what to look for and helping me understand what’s suspicious.
My hair has grown back.
Emotionally, it can get you down, but Im not dying from this.
If I’m faithful about going to the doctor, he can help me take care of it.
I’m eating right, taking care of my body, and trying to keep stress low.
