Sam’s Blog Part One. Wonderful Sam is BRCA+, unbeknownst to her, the first indicator of this was skin melanoma. Sam wants to raise awareness about the links between BRCA and skin melanoma. Join us for Sam Blog Part Two, to find out how things could have been very different for Sam. Take it away Sam:
May is skin cancer awareness month and (although I know there are other skin cancers) Melanoma May would be another way to describe it for me personally. It is my birth month and I love that the sun is starting again to warm us all up with flowers and trees in blossom and lots of cake.
The May I was 41, I was diagnosed with melanoma. I “found” it myself by just looking over my shoulder. How weird is that? It was easy to have it removed and naively I had no idea it was even dangerous because the “treatment” was a small incision and then a larger tissue removal (ironically by a breast surgeon) followed by a very quick recovery. I hate to admit this but I even though “how difficult can this be? Why is everyone complaining about cancer treatments?” (oh how naïve and immature I was!). I only realised how serious it was when I was diagnosed with breast cancer nine years later and my breast surgeon said to me that he would rather have my breast cancer than have had my melanoma. I thought that was weird (again!) and went straight to talk to my dermatologist and asked why the breast surgeon would have preferred not to have melanoma. It turns out there was no treatment for melanoma at the time I had had it … the penny was starting to drop.
But I also had no idea that I had the BRCA gene mutation at the time. However, in a way you can say it was the “saving grace” of my cancer experiences because it was the one thing that the genetics team decided was the reason I needed to be tested following two breast cancers. That said, no one connected the dots until I spoke to a specialist geneticist. Nonetheless, knowing I have BRCA explains everything now. My age at diagnosis; my recurrent breast cancer; the poor treatment response to tablets. All of that adds up to my need for increased vigilance and good sun protection all the time.
The sadness I have is that had I been more informed by my family of our history of cancer I could – and would – have been tested much earlier and taken advantage of the opportunity to have preventative surgeries (removal of my ovaries and a double mastectomy) long before I had any active cancer thereby dramatically reducing my risks.
But I can’t look back now I can only look forward. Forewarned is forearmed and that is what I plan to be for as many more Mays as I can.
Thank you Sam – Part Two of Sam’s blog will be released soon. A women who has endured a lot, and is still standing, previving and surviving 🙂 x
