This is JUST over 20+ stitches.
This is from JUST Stage 1B melanoma.
This is JUST from tanning.
Still think it is "JUST skin cancer"?
#geteducated #stoptanning #melanomasucks #notjustskincancer #besunsmart
Showing posts with label coping with melanoma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coping with melanoma. Show all posts
Friday, December 20, 2013
This is JUST Skin Cancer
This is JUST over 20+ stitches.
This is from JUST Stage 1B melanoma.
This is JUST from tanning.
Still think it is "JUST skin cancer"?
#geteducated #stoptanning #melanomasucks #notjustskincancer #besunsmart
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Not Playing the Blame Game
As October and breast cancer awareness month ends, November and lung and prostate awareness month
begins. I just want to say that although breast cancer gets a lot of
attention, and that I have a bit of "Pink Envy", I do hope that all
other cancers, including melanoma, are someday acknowledged as much as
breast cancer is. I want a cure for all cancers. We NEED a cure for all cancers!
I haven't been on her much lately, but I wanted to share a few things :)
At work today, one of the other nurses told me that one of their patients was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma. He is a middle aged white man, and he had a mole on his leg, just like me. Groin biopsy with a lot of lymph node removes. 3 were positive. He went through treatment, chemo and radiation....he just had a MRI and it is in his brain now.
I can't explain what it does to me to hear of a complete stranger being diagnosed with melanoma. I wanted to just walk up to him and give him the biggest hug. I saw him when he was leaving, and he looked pretty healthy. I couldn't help thinking, "He doesn't look sick". That is how the BEAST works. On the outside you can look perfectly normal and healthy, and on the inside you can have tumors everywhere. Not to mention the fear we hide on the inside that we hide. People not getting that you are in a serious fight for your life, like when you have breast cancer, or lung cancer. We don't always LOOK sick. We don't always LOOK like cancer patients.
I am pretty sick of melanoma right now. I really,really, REALLY hate it. So, if you think I am crazy for getting upset that you are sun-tanning, or sun-burning, then you really must not get it. And you probably won't truly get IT, until YOU get IT. It took me awhile to get THAT. I have learned not to push it onto others. I say what I have to say, and either they accept it, or question me about it, or they don't get it and do what they want. It isn't my problem after I give them info. If they want to continue to hurt themselves and risk getting melanoma, that is their right. It still pisses me off though!
But I will get over it.
There are a lot of people that can't accept that it is harmful to tan, or burn. I recently lost my "best friend" because of my melanoma. She thought I blamed her for getting skin cancer, because I used to sunbathe with her when we were teens, 20 some years ago... How ridiculous. I downplayed my cancer when I first told her. She had a lot going on with her son who has cerebral palsy and was ill for quite some time. I spent most phone calls comforting and listening to her. Inside I was battling depression and fear. I was a wreck, but didn't want to impose that on her. We talked less and less, the more I went through the after math of my diagnosis. Anything I did say, she didn't quite get what I was talking about, so it became easier not to mention it. It made me hold a lot inside, which was really not good. I wanted to talk about it, but anytime I did, I just felt bad because, it seems like no one wanted to hear about it, unless they were personally affected by it themselves. ( So thankful for my melanoma peeps on Facebook and Twitter! xo). I assumed that since she was my "best friend" she would feel the same way my family did. I felt like people thought I did it to myself because I tanned too much. I felt like they blamed me for my melanoma. I blamed myself for it, why shouldn't they? I needed the ones close to me to confirm that it was going to be okay. That I wasn't a complete idiot for tanning so much I got 2 types of skin cancer.
I didn't have many people outside my family that were really understanding and there for me. She should have been there for me. She wasn't. A little over a year after my surgery, she posted on Facebook that she went to the beach (for 6 hours I found out late between 10-4pm. We all know that is the worst possible time to go!) and that her and her 2 very fair skinned, young, daughters were "as burnt as lobsters, lol!" Well, I was really upset by that to say the least.
She didn't get it. Her oldest daughter who was 14 at the time, didn't get it. Her friends (who I don't personally know and are VERY rude and verbally abusive and threatening, by the way) don't get it. In the interim I was verbally abused by her and her friends, and I was told that I was wrong by a mutual friend of ours. The entire time, I held my head up and decided that if she really wanted to end the friendship, then that is what we would do, but I was not going to change the way that post made me feel. If she would have held a gun to her children's heads that would not have felt any different to me than what she did. She let her children get burned badly when she knew what had happened to me. Her "best friend". Who the hell was I to think that she would care enough to protect her very own children from the same thing that her "best friend" was fighting. It was a very sad way for a 30 year friendship to end.
I don't play the blame game anymore about me getting melanoma. It doesn't get me anywhere. I have decided that melanoma has taken enough from me. I am not going to live with guilt about choosing to tan, when I didn't know it was hurting me. I am in a much better place after letting that guilt go. I focus more on the fact that because of my melanoma, my daughter will never set foot in a tanning bed. EVER. That alone makes it worth it.
I hope you all never have to know what it feels like, or to have to try to explain it to someone else. I hope that you never have to walk in our shoes. It is not fun.
You don't just cut melanoma off and move on. It is not JUST skin cancer.
I am doing well today. I am over 1 1/2 years post melanoma surgery. I remain stage 1 NED. I know everyday that it could change. I am busy living life, and not looking over my shoulder (as much!) thinking that I am sick and no one is doing anything about it. At stage 1, they don't do bloodwork scans, or even xrays. I don't even have to see my oncologist for follow ups. I am pretty much left to myself.
But I am happy, and celebrating life.
That is what it is all about. Not letting melanoma win.
I haven't been on her much lately, but I wanted to share a few things :)
At work today, one of the other nurses told me that one of their patients was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma. He is a middle aged white man, and he had a mole on his leg, just like me. Groin biopsy with a lot of lymph node removes. 3 were positive. He went through treatment, chemo and radiation....he just had a MRI and it is in his brain now.
I can't explain what it does to me to hear of a complete stranger being diagnosed with melanoma. I wanted to just walk up to him and give him the biggest hug. I saw him when he was leaving, and he looked pretty healthy. I couldn't help thinking, "He doesn't look sick". That is how the BEAST works. On the outside you can look perfectly normal and healthy, and on the inside you can have tumors everywhere. Not to mention the fear we hide on the inside that we hide. People not getting that you are in a serious fight for your life, like when you have breast cancer, or lung cancer. We don't always LOOK sick. We don't always LOOK like cancer patients.
I am pretty sick of melanoma right now. I really,really, REALLY hate it. So, if you think I am crazy for getting upset that you are sun-tanning, or sun-burning, then you really must not get it. And you probably won't truly get IT, until YOU get IT. It took me awhile to get THAT. I have learned not to push it onto others. I say what I have to say, and either they accept it, or question me about it, or they don't get it and do what they want. It isn't my problem after I give them info. If they want to continue to hurt themselves and risk getting melanoma, that is their right. It still pisses me off though!
But I will get over it.
There are a lot of people that can't accept that it is harmful to tan, or burn. I recently lost my "best friend" because of my melanoma. She thought I blamed her for getting skin cancer, because I used to sunbathe with her when we were teens, 20 some years ago... How ridiculous. I downplayed my cancer when I first told her. She had a lot going on with her son who has cerebral palsy and was ill for quite some time. I spent most phone calls comforting and listening to her. Inside I was battling depression and fear. I was a wreck, but didn't want to impose that on her. We talked less and less, the more I went through the after math of my diagnosis. Anything I did say, she didn't quite get what I was talking about, so it became easier not to mention it. It made me hold a lot inside, which was really not good. I wanted to talk about it, but anytime I did, I just felt bad because, it seems like no one wanted to hear about it, unless they were personally affected by it themselves. ( So thankful for my melanoma peeps on Facebook and Twitter! xo). I assumed that since she was my "best friend" she would feel the same way my family did. I felt like people thought I did it to myself because I tanned too much. I felt like they blamed me for my melanoma. I blamed myself for it, why shouldn't they? I needed the ones close to me to confirm that it was going to be okay. That I wasn't a complete idiot for tanning so much I got 2 types of skin cancer.
I didn't have many people outside my family that were really understanding and there for me. She should have been there for me. She wasn't. A little over a year after my surgery, she posted on Facebook that she went to the beach (for 6 hours I found out late between 10-4pm. We all know that is the worst possible time to go!) and that her and her 2 very fair skinned, young, daughters were "as burnt as lobsters, lol!" Well, I was really upset by that to say the least.
She didn't get it. Her oldest daughter who was 14 at the time, didn't get it. Her friends (who I don't personally know and are VERY rude and verbally abusive and threatening, by the way) don't get it. In the interim I was verbally abused by her and her friends, and I was told that I was wrong by a mutual friend of ours. The entire time, I held my head up and decided that if she really wanted to end the friendship, then that is what we would do, but I was not going to change the way that post made me feel. If she would have held a gun to her children's heads that would not have felt any different to me than what she did. She let her children get burned badly when she knew what had happened to me. Her "best friend". Who the hell was I to think that she would care enough to protect her very own children from the same thing that her "best friend" was fighting. It was a very sad way for a 30 year friendship to end.
I don't play the blame game anymore about me getting melanoma. It doesn't get me anywhere. I have decided that melanoma has taken enough from me. I am not going to live with guilt about choosing to tan, when I didn't know it was hurting me. I am in a much better place after letting that guilt go. I focus more on the fact that because of my melanoma, my daughter will never set foot in a tanning bed. EVER. That alone makes it worth it.
I hope you all never have to know what it feels like, or to have to try to explain it to someone else. I hope that you never have to walk in our shoes. It is not fun.
You don't just cut melanoma off and move on. It is not JUST skin cancer.
I am doing well today. I am over 1 1/2 years post melanoma surgery. I remain stage 1 NED. I know everyday that it could change. I am busy living life, and not looking over my shoulder (as much!) thinking that I am sick and no one is doing anything about it. At stage 1, they don't do bloodwork scans, or even xrays. I don't even have to see my oncologist for follow ups. I am pretty much left to myself.
But I am happy, and celebrating life.
That is what it is all about. Not letting melanoma win.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
How Do You Cope In Melanoma World?
One of the hardest things about melanoma, for me, has been learning to cope with the after math. It is not easy being told you have cancer. It wasn't easy for me hearing it, even though as soon as I had a change in my mole, I looked it up online. What I saw scared me to death, but I guess I was still hoping that the dermatologist would say, " Nope, it wasn't melanoma! Just an ugly mole!" Wishful thinking.
I was not prepared for the look on my fiance's face in the derm's office. I wasn't prepared to tell my family or my kids. That was the worst. You tend to make light of it. "Oh, I just have to have a small, quick little surgery to get some that they left behind to get rid of it." I told my daughter this. She could read the fear on my face though. She knew at 16 that it was more serious than that.
Then after I made it through the surgery, I had to recover. That would have been impossible if not for my support group, which consisted of, my family, kids, my fiance, and my online friends. Returning to work was very difficult. I felt no support from them. I am just an employee. I felt like as time went on, that people didn't want to hear about melanoma anymore. I went into full education mode once I was diagnosed, mostly because I didn't know the dangers of tanning. I didn't know about melanoma at all. I felt that it was my duty to educate everyone about it, because I figured they would want to know! I thought they would all stop tanning and thank me for sharing this news Wrong. I was shunned, de-friended, made fun of, told off, and ignored. I became so depressed. My kids and fiance even got sick of hearing it. It was all I could talk about. I recently realized that I was living in so much fear that I was crippled by it and all I could do was educate. It was my coping mechanism. I am so glad that I realized this and have slowly made changes to spend more time with everyone and LIVE my LIFE. I could have easily lost my life. I believe that melanoma was given to me for a reason. I believe I am supposed to share my story. I am supposed to warn people of the dangers of tanning.
So share I have. Pictures and everything are out there for people to see. I have done a TV interview and other interviews. I have spoken at the Relay for Life in my area as a survivor. I have shared my pictures numerous times, for a calendar, for a website. I will not turn down any opportunity. That is how I cope with melanoma. I attack back. It wanted to kill me and it did hurt me, but it doesn't control me. I will not lie down, I will not let it win. I am a warrior and I will fight until I can not fight anymore! I fight for the ones that have passed away and for the ones that are yet to be diagnosed. I fight for those that are living and fighting the beast, and the ones that are paralyzed with fear that can't speak about it. When one of us takes a break, another one of us is speaking out. We will not be silenced. This can all get very overwhelming. To see warriors pass away after fighting so hard. "They were fine last month". That is how melanoma works. It is a sneaky little bastard. Likes to hide and rear its ugly head when you least expect it. We all mourn and hurt together, and some of us get darn right pissed off! We are bound together by our diagnosis. We fight together, because we need each other. When I get angry, I fight harder. I am angry. I hate melanoma. I was recently told that my pathology report was great, meaning that the possibility of my melanoma coming back, is slim to none. It took me awhile to digest it. I wanted to believe it, but I was scared to let myself. I know how this stuff works. One minute you are fine, told you are clear and the next you are gone. I had to let it all sink in and I did a lot of research on path reports and talked to my new oncologist on the phone twice. I guess after feeling I was stage 2a, and feeling like I was not a high enough stage to be a "warrior", going to a stage 1b, was like I didn't even have melanoma. But, I had it just as much as anyone who is diagnosed. I went through, and am still going through, fear of melanoma. I had a very intense surgery to remove it and a long journey to recover from the physical and emotional scars. I am a melanoma warrior. I stand with melanoma warriors of all stages, and we are ALL important in this fight.
Being part of something like this has its ups and downs, but it has taught me a lot and has made me a better person. I have taken a good look at myself, and I like me. I didn't like me before and that is why I tanned. I wanted to change me. I have learned to love me for who and what I am. The parts I don't love, I am changing so I do, but not in an artificial way. I am being good to myself for a change. I deserve it!! We all deserve it! Take care of yourself and others. It will come back to you tenfold.
If you need to learn how to cope and be good to yourself, follow your heart. It is usually right. I have had to learn to listen to myself. If I feel like I am getting too depressed and overwhelmed by it all, I step back. If my family tells me I am not paying attention to them, I stop and make sure I spend more time with them. I listen to them. And I don't forget to LIVE and enjoy life!! ;)
I was not prepared for the look on my fiance's face in the derm's office. I wasn't prepared to tell my family or my kids. That was the worst. You tend to make light of it. "Oh, I just have to have a small, quick little surgery to get some that they left behind to get rid of it." I told my daughter this. She could read the fear on my face though. She knew at 16 that it was more serious than that.
Then after I made it through the surgery, I had to recover. That would have been impossible if not for my support group, which consisted of, my family, kids, my fiance, and my online friends. Returning to work was very difficult. I felt no support from them. I am just an employee. I felt like as time went on, that people didn't want to hear about melanoma anymore. I went into full education mode once I was diagnosed, mostly because I didn't know the dangers of tanning. I didn't know about melanoma at all. I felt that it was my duty to educate everyone about it, because I figured they would want to know! I thought they would all stop tanning and thank me for sharing this news Wrong. I was shunned, de-friended, made fun of, told off, and ignored. I became so depressed. My kids and fiance even got sick of hearing it. It was all I could talk about. I recently realized that I was living in so much fear that I was crippled by it and all I could do was educate. It was my coping mechanism. I am so glad that I realized this and have slowly made changes to spend more time with everyone and LIVE my LIFE. I could have easily lost my life. I believe that melanoma was given to me for a reason. I believe I am supposed to share my story. I am supposed to warn people of the dangers of tanning.
So share I have. Pictures and everything are out there for people to see. I have done a TV interview and other interviews. I have spoken at the Relay for Life in my area as a survivor. I have shared my pictures numerous times, for a calendar, for a website. I will not turn down any opportunity. That is how I cope with melanoma. I attack back. It wanted to kill me and it did hurt me, but it doesn't control me. I will not lie down, I will not let it win. I am a warrior and I will fight until I can not fight anymore! I fight for the ones that have passed away and for the ones that are yet to be diagnosed. I fight for those that are living and fighting the beast, and the ones that are paralyzed with fear that can't speak about it. When one of us takes a break, another one of us is speaking out. We will not be silenced. This can all get very overwhelming. To see warriors pass away after fighting so hard. "They were fine last month". That is how melanoma works. It is a sneaky little bastard. Likes to hide and rear its ugly head when you least expect it. We all mourn and hurt together, and some of us get darn right pissed off! We are bound together by our diagnosis. We fight together, because we need each other. When I get angry, I fight harder. I am angry. I hate melanoma. I was recently told that my pathology report was great, meaning that the possibility of my melanoma coming back, is slim to none. It took me awhile to digest it. I wanted to believe it, but I was scared to let myself. I know how this stuff works. One minute you are fine, told you are clear and the next you are gone. I had to let it all sink in and I did a lot of research on path reports and talked to my new oncologist on the phone twice. I guess after feeling I was stage 2a, and feeling like I was not a high enough stage to be a "warrior", going to a stage 1b, was like I didn't even have melanoma. But, I had it just as much as anyone who is diagnosed. I went through, and am still going through, fear of melanoma. I had a very intense surgery to remove it and a long journey to recover from the physical and emotional scars. I am a melanoma warrior. I stand with melanoma warriors of all stages, and we are ALL important in this fight.
Being part of something like this has its ups and downs, but it has taught me a lot and has made me a better person. I have taken a good look at myself, and I like me. I didn't like me before and that is why I tanned. I wanted to change me. I have learned to love me for who and what I am. The parts I don't love, I am changing so I do, but not in an artificial way. I am being good to myself for a change. I deserve it!! We all deserve it! Take care of yourself and others. It will come back to you tenfold.
If you need to learn how to cope and be good to yourself, follow your heart. It is usually right. I have had to learn to listen to myself. If I feel like I am getting too depressed and overwhelmed by it all, I step back. If my family tells me I am not paying attention to them, I stop and make sure I spend more time with them. I listen to them. And I don't forget to LIVE and enjoy life!! ;)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)