My dad has no family history of skin cancer. He applies sunscreen when he goes out, and he doesn’t have pale skin. Against all assumptions, after the dermatologist completed a routine body check one summer, the results came back positive.
He was diagnosed with Stage 3 melanoma, which was the second most common form of cancer for teens in 2009. The American Melanoma Foundation estimates more than 1 million diagnoses of skin cancer occur in the U.S. each year, and 1 in 5 Americans will have it during their lifetimes.
The number of people being diagnosed has continued to increase over the years, and doctors and researchers have credited early detection as a lifesaving factor. The American Cancer Society advises doctors’ offices to complete routine skin checkups with their patients and educate them about the effects of sun exposure. The recommended age to begin asking these questions? As early as age 20.
The MU Health Care Center had free skin cancer screenings at the Missouri State Fair this year. It was the state’s 110th annual showcase and the perfect opportunity to service the community. Admission cost $8, which included seeing the entertainment, livestock shows and exhibits. It sounded like a good deal, especially in comparison to screening costs elsewhere, but I have a feeling many Tigers couldn’t make it.
You see, the fair ran from Aug. 9 to 19 in Sedalia, a good hour and 15 minutes away from Columbia — not convenient for students who lived in Columbia this summer, for those who went through recruitment or for the thousands who arrived after the fair ended.
But it is reassuring that the fair was not the last opportunity for students to respond to skin care. The MU Health Care Center has dermatology clinics, staffed by MU physicians trained in the most advanced treatments. The Spot Check clinic, for example, will do their best to get you an appointment the same day or the next day if you were to find a new mole, or one that has changed in size or color, according to the MU Health Care website.
But why wait? No one knows your body better than yourself. People need to take self-exams more seriously and check for new and changing moles. Adolescents should discover if they have family histories of melanoma and come in at least once a year for a full body exam.
I neither have any intentions of scaring people nor recommend we all move into our basements and hide from the sun, but I can’t help but wonder if girls and boys would continue to use tanning beds if they studied the facts.
The MU Health Care Center does a fantastic job supplying information about the different types of skin cancer, which can be found on its [website](http://www.muhealth.org/). It provides descriptions about cancer cell appearance and risk factors and has photos and videos for identification purposes and prevention methods. Though a little graphic, the photos are truthful and eye-opening.
But it is neither the statistics nor the photos that draws my attention the most. The Web page includes a recently filmed video titled [“Dear 16-year-old me,”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4jgUcxMezM) in which you can hear a variety of speakers introducing their stories. Some wished they never bought that hideous prom dress, others wished they could have warned themselves that styles were never going to come back, some wished they dared to dive into the arts. But they all do have one thing in common: the scars on their arms, head, ears and neck — the battles they fought, the battles they won.
Clips of each speaker include warnings about not wearing sunscreen — that being tan doesn’t amount to being there for your child’s first steps, that it’s not just those with pale skin who are only susceptible to skin cancer and that it can be present in people of all ages.
I hope that the Health Care Center continues to reach out to the MU community by providing us these lifelines, and that students of every background and skin type continue to respond to them.
It is important that we take action now for people like my dad and for those who will stand where my brothers and I once stood. Skin cancer is preventable and, if caught and treated early, it’s curable.
