Blog Page for forgetmenot

Blog entry :

Blog By forgetmenot

title : My new mission in life

dated : 10:03pm Aug 05, 2009

I have a new mission in life. When I see a fair skinned person going about in the sun with their skin unprotected, I let them know that due to the ozone layer depletion, the sun's rays are much more deadly than they were as little as twenty years ago and I tell them what happened to me. Last week, I lost my right ear to an oncologic surgeon because of a melanoma. It started out as a tiny white bump. My dermatologist thought it was a keratosis and froze it. The next week it grew back and he took a piece for a biopsy. The results came back showing that it was a very rare white melanoma, the worst skin cancer you can get. This cancer does not attack the skin as a colored melanoma does. It grows downward into the lymph glands. The surgeon removed most of my ear and cut an arc from over my ear to under my chin for lymph samples. The result of the lymph sampling showed that we got the all the cancer out in time. I am clean. This specific cancer (amelanotic melanoma) is one hundred percent due to sun exposure. This cancer carries with it up to an eighty-percent mortality rate due to its very speedy metastasizing and because it masquerades as a harmless keratosis and can go undetected until it is too late.

I encourage the people I talk with to wear more sun protective clothing or use sun block. I do not just go and look for people to accost with this. I talk to them if they are next to me and seem amenable to chat. I am little shy at doing this and so far have only talked to two people. One gal I spoke to said she would wear a hat from now on. If I can help at least one other person not to get what I got, I would be very pleased.

Oh, on September 2, I have an appointment with a plastic surgeon who will put together a new ear for me from somewhere else on my body.