ARE YOU WILLING TO DIE TO BE TAN?

ARE YOU WILLING TO DIE TO BE TAN?

Are you a sun worshipper?  If you are, you are putting your life in danger.

My father died of melanoma back in 1971.  5 years earlier he had a mole removed which was malignant.  Melanoma.  They removed all the lymph nodes around the affected area.

The end of May 1971 he had his 5 year check-up and was declared cancer free.  He was a survivor.  After 5 years, they say you are cured.  July 3 he got very sick and started throwing up.  He never threw up.  They next morning he saw his personal dr.  He did a chest X-ray and his lungs were metastasized.  He was immediately sent to MD Anderson in Houston.  They also found tumors in his bowels.  They found that the cancer wasn't in his lymph nodes but in his blood stream depositing cancerous cells along the path.

A week or so later, they discovered a brain tumor.  They decided to give him a treatment of chemotherapy, which was a brand new treatment.  And then they sent him home.  Two weeks later he was transported back to MD Anderson by ambulance.  The tumor had grown to the size of one 2 years old.

I took care of him the last month of his life.  I was with him 24/7.  He was a preacher and he lost his ability to communicate.  That's when he stopped talking.  I had to suction him out just so he could breathe.  It always terrified him.  He couldn't eat.  I would make Jello water and squirt it down the back of his throat.  The skin of his gums started to peel away.  I was so glad when the brain tumor grew through the pain center.  He had no control of his bowels.  He couldn't stand to have anything on his skin.  The last week of his life the tumors starting to grow under the top layer of his skin.  Little black dots that became little pointed lumps. 

End of May, he was pronounced "cured" after 5 years cancer free.  July 5th, he was diagnosed again.  September 5, he was dead.  He was 45 years old.   I was only 18.  His weight had dropped from 180 to 120.  He looked like a little boy wearing his daddy’s suit.

He lived his life outside where his fair skin was burned over and over.  Please please please don't spend your time in the sun unprotected.  Just because your skin is dark or tans doesn't mean you are safe from melanoma.   The sun’s rays don't discriminate.  They just damage and destroy.

45 years young and gone.  At my age now I realize just how young he was.  You can prevent melanoma.  Put sunscreen on anytime you are in the sun.  The sun is not your friend unless you are protected.

Melanoma is a terrible way to die.  I can assure you that when you are in the casket not one person will say, "but doesn't she have a pretty tan." 

If you go out in the sun, put on the sunscreen.  Do it in memory of my father, Clyde Ogden Moore.  You were taken way too soon, Daddy. 

copyrighted 2015

caryn cannatella

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