Jessica DeJongh didn’t think much of the mole on her left shin. She had been sitting next to a campfire when she noticed the small, oddly shaped mark, and wrote it off as a piece of ash that had escaped from the flames and landed on her leg.
But at a routine checkup in 2003, DeJongh’s nurse practitioner spotted the mole and made DeJongh an appointment to have it removed. Two weeks after the appointment, the call came with the results: stage two melanoma.
“I was not prepared at all,” said DeJongh, a first-grade teacher from Manchester. “It was scary.”
Next came surgery to remove a baseball-sized chunk of her shin around the mole and a year of shots that made DeJongh sick and caused her hair to fall out.
Luckily, her skin cancer was caught early and hadn’t spread to her lymph nodes or internal organs. DeJongh has now been cancer-free for eight years. She thanks that nurse practitioner for her life.
DeJongh looks back differently now at summers spent in the sun at a pond behind her parents’ house, and childhood photos depicting her young, sunburned face.
“We’d put sunscreen on in the morning, but we’d never reapply,” she said.
Skin cancer, the most commonly diagnosed of all cancers in the United States, affects more people than breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer combined.
In Maine, the rate of new cases of melanoma, which causes most skin cancer deaths, was 13th highest in the country in 2009, according to the National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Melanoma kills an average of 47 people in Maine every year, a rising number that ranks the state 12th in the nation for deaths from melanoma per 100,000 residents. Death rates are highest in Cumberland, Androscoggin and Kennebec counties.
According to the Melanoma Foundation of New England, where DeJongh volunteers, melanoma rates are increasing faster than nearly all other cancers. For those who visit tanning beds to bake in a summer glow, rates are even higher.
“It is not safe to tan period, however people who use a tanning bed once a month before the age of 35 increase their melanoma risk by 75 percent,” said Deb Girard, the foundation’s executive director. “Giving off three to six times the amount of radiation than the sun, tanning beds are incredibly dangerous and it is vital we protect the skin of our children and ourselves by not using them.”
In addition to skipping the tanning bed, to protect yourself from skin cancer:
• Avoid sun tanning and especially don’t burn.
• Apply a broad spectrum sunscreen with an SPF of at least 15, and reapply every two hours and after swimming or sweating.
• Wear protective clothing, such as a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses with 99-100 percent UVA/UVB protection.
• Seek shade when the sun’s UV rays are most intense, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
• Pay attention to the UV Index when planning outdoor activities
I grew up on MDI and used a tanning bed continuously only to be diagnoised with melonoma at the age of 48. I was in stage 3 and after 2 surgeries as they didn’t get clear parimeters, I am now cancer free for 7 years. I think it has a lot to do with so much fair skin in Maine!!!
Thank you for sharing your story. People still think a tan is a sign of beauty. It’s a good color if you come by it naturally. Otherwise, it’s not meant for you to have.
By clicking on the graphic, it shows that melanoma is related to income, (Cumberland and Knox Ctys are leaders in melanoma), income is related to ability to afford tanning, tanning is related to melanoma, melanoma can mean an early trip to the grave.
Vanity. Try arguing with a teen-aged girl that tanning booths are unsafe. She’ll point to the role models around her, teachers, ministers, heck, the Speaker of the House, John Boehner is tanned orange, and of course, everyone on TV. Even people that have had skin cancer that tanned blame it on their fair skin.
It’s the UV, not the fair skin.
The graphic shows incidence per 100,000 people. The whole South Coastal region has more people and is at a lower latitude. Seems like there are those that will blame everything on the wealthy and Rebublicans. The Speaker is naturally dark skinned and has been prejudiced against his whole career for that fact. Melanoma could be related to proximity to the beach! I would suggest anyone read Dr Michael Holick’s book The Vitamin D Solution for a sound understanding of how much UVA,UVB is too much based on many variables such as skin type, latitude in which one resides, time of year, etc. He has great charts that make it easier to get the correct amount of sun.
The entire point of the incidents per population metric is so it doesn’t matter the raw population amount. Having more people doesn’t affect the statistic. Also do not discount the effects money has on a community. While correlation is not causation, it is an interesting side note.
My father had a melanoma lesion removed roughly 20 years ago. He kept up with his routine checks at the dermatologist and went without ever having another lesion. Unfortunately, in March 2009 I brought him to Mass General to have a large mass removed from his neck and sure enough, the mass and all of the lymphnodes in that side of his neck were full of melanoma. 2 1/2 years, two bouts of radiation, and three trial drugs at Dana Farber later, I lost my father to metatstatic melanoma. I never knew the severity of it, and I am very thankful that my father was as strong as he was considering most with that diagnosis only live six months. I won’t deny having been in a tanning bed a few times throughout my life, but since my father’s diagnosis, I now wear SPF 50 and try to educate people I know about the effects the sun and tanning beds can have. I, like my father, am very fair skinned, and of course it’d be nice to have a tan, but I value my life so much more. Vanity is just not worth it.
Thanks to my eye doctor in lincoln and drs in boston with a new treatment all i lost to melonoma was the sight in my eye. could have lost my life.ware your sunglasses.