SHADE Foundation

Below are the amaz­ing sur­vivor sto­ries of just a few of SHADE’s friends. Are you a sur­vivor or have you been affected by skin can­cer? Send us your sto­ries to info@shadefoundation.org.
Read John’s Story · Read Meghan’s Story · Read Rachel’s Story

John

My story starts with an adven­tur­ous, blonde, boy next door, who grew up in the Midwest but spent all his sum­mers in South Florida. He was drawn to the beach, loved the water, and praised the sun. As a result, he spent many nights suf­fer­ing from exces­sive UV radi­a­tion. Yeah, that’s right — a sun­burn! Little did he know, he was dam­ag­ing my DNA and set­ting the stage for future drama.

I was just a kid in the 1970s and most peo­ple were in the dark when it came to real­iz­ing the dan­gers of pro­longed sun expo­sure. I now pay the price with reg­u­lar biop­sies, surg­eries, and can­cer diag­noses. I am a malig­nant Melanoma survivor.

Fast for­ward to the present. About one mil­lion Americans now develop skin can­cer each year and every hour one will die from melanoma. What sounds like an insid­i­ous epi­demic from a sci­ence fic­tion movie is, indeed, a jaw-dropping real­ity in mod­ern America. Bottom line, when kids blis­ter or burn from being in the sun, trou­ble may loom in their future.

If I could send a mes­sage in a bot­tle through time to that blonde kid on the beach it would say: “Respect the Sun’s power. Get healthy doses, but don’t get burned. Protect your­self and your chil­dren! Wear sun­screen and pro­tec­tive cloth­ing! Get real and spread the word!”

Your nat­ural skin color is beau­ti­ful, so only tan from a can if you must. Examine your skin reg­u­larly and see a der­ma­tol­o­gist if you notice any­thing sus­pi­cious. Examine your kids. Examine your friends! Heed this advice and con­trol you own des­tiny. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe the Surgeon General deter­mined that sun­burn is the direct result of stu­pid­ity. Live smart, live strong and live long.

Thanks,

John

Meghan

• Age: 23
• Diagnosis: Stage 2 Melanoma
• Date of Diagnosis: January 2004

In January of 2004 my life was turned upside down when I was diag­nosed with Melanoma at the age of 20. Since I was 18 I had been vis­it­ing tan­ning booths in an effort to hide my pale com­plex­ion and erase all indi­ca­tion of my Irish her­itage, so I could “look like every­one else.” Three years later I have come to real­ize that look­ing and act­ing like every­one else is far from what I want to do. 

Rachel D.

My name is Rachel D. In March 2008, I was diag­nosed with Melanoma, the dead­liest form of skin can­cer. I am only 11. This is my story.

I live in a beach com­mu­nity in Narragansett, Rhode Island. I have always grown up on the water. My par­ents have a boat and all sum­mer we water ski, knee­board and tube. We also have a pool where I swim all day, even at night too. I always wear sun­screen 30+ because I have light skin and red hair, putting me at risk for skin can­cer. I was always told that the sun could cause skin can­cer because of harm­ful ultra­vi­o­let rays of the sun. But, until now, I never truly under­stood exactly what that meant.

I remem­ber my Mom always check­ing my skin for freck­les or spots called moles. My Mom has blonde hair, blue eyes and very light skin. She has been hav­ing spots removed from her body for a long time, all due to the sun. So I guess that’s why she always checks me even though it is very annoying.

My mom noticed this spot on my back that she said seemed to be “chang­ing”. She told my Dad when I went to the doc­tors to have them mea­sure it. The doc­tor said it appeared to be fine but gave us the name of a Pediatric Dermatologist. A Dermatologist is a doc­tor of the skin. An appoint­ment was made and off we went.

I have to tell you, I was very ner­vous going to the Dermatologist. I didn’t want some­one to check my skin from head to toe the way my Mother does. It was kind of embar­rass­ing. The doc­tor began at my scalp. Did you know you could get skin can­cer up there too? She looked at my face, neck, ears, body, arms, legs even fin­gers and toes. When she checked my spot on my back, she said, “my gut feel­ing says it’s fine, I am 99.9% sure it is noth­ing to worry about.” “We can mon­i­tor it.” But, my Mom wanted it gone and I am glad she did. Although, at the time, I was not happy with her.

They brought in a tray of all sorts of things includ­ing nee­dles, which I hate the most! The nee­dles were used to numb the skin so they could cut out the spot and stitch the skin back together. Once they give you the nee­dle, you really don’t feel a thing. They send the skin to another doc­tor who looks at the tis­sue under a micro­scope. They are look­ing for typ­i­cal (nor­mal) cells, atyp­i­cal (chang­ing cells) or cancer.

My Dad got the phone call on a Wednesday night a week and a half later. The doc­tor said I was diag­nosed with Melanoma In-situ, which means the can­cer was on the epi­der­mis, the upper layer of my skin. She also said I had to go in for surgery to remove more tis­sue to make sure they got all the cancer.

My surgery was sched­uled for Good Friday at 8:30 in the morn­ing. The surgery was done by a Plastic Surgeon because of the large cuts and amount of tis­sue they have to take. These doc­tors are trained in mak­ing the best scars. Although, my Mom, Dad and I told him we didn’t care about how big or large the scar was because all we cared about was that the can­cer was gone.

This surgery was dif­fer­ent because now I had five nee­dles pok­ing me in the back to numb the area. And it took longer. But, it wasn’t too bad. My Mom and Dad told me they cut a lot and deep. They also said there were so many stitches they couldn’t count and that they would even­tu­ally dis­solve. They sent this tis­sue back to Boston where they could biopsy it. A few days later, we got the phone call again. This time the tis­sue was can­cer free!

Now I’m just wait­ing for the stitches to dis­solve. I also have to go to the doc­tors every three months, but that is OK com­pared to how it could have been. If my Melanoma was not caught in time it could have spread to the rest of my body. I might have had to get chemother­apy or radi­a­tion; instead I am can­cer free. My Mom pretty much saved my life! My new say­ing is, “Make a pos­i­tive out of a neg­a­tive by teach­ing others.”

Rachel also cre­ates and sells her own jew­elry. A por­tion of her sales are donated to the SHADE Foundation. Support Rachel and SHADE by vis­it­ing Rachel’s Sun Safety Website.