When it hits home
When I found out my mom had cancer, the bottom dropped out of my world.
Hearing bad news like that first puts you into an alternate universe. You think, Am I dreaming? Is this all just a bad dream?
Then your stomach sinks when it hits you: This is no dream. It's reality.
My mom was at a routine doctor's visit when her physician noticed the dark mole. It was changing, growing; it should be biopsied. Just to make sure nothing's wrong — which it probably isn't, right?
Then the test results came back, and something was wrong. Cancer-wrong. Melanoma-wrong.
I headed for the Internet to find out a million and one facts about melanoma. Here's the one that hits home hardest: Melanoma is the only fatal skin cancer.
So to all those people who say, "It's just skin cancer," you're wrong. Possibly dead wrong.
And I saw the statistics, the numbers. The various stages, the depths of the mole. The survival rate for each stage — holy cow, the survival rate? My mom's not supposed to die, and you're talking survival rates?
Because even for Stage I, when the five-year survival rate is 90 percent, well, 10 percent isn't a big enough margin for my mom.
And that's what it was — Stage I. That's what the oncologist said (holy cow, the oncologist) after surgeons removed the mole and a good chunk of her arm in the process.
Stage I means no chemotherapy, no radiation. Not deep enough to spread to the lymph nodes. Just keep a close eye on things for the next few years.
So I was relieved. Incredibly relieved.
And one year later, mom's doing fine, as far as the doctors can tell.
But I still know, in the back of my mind, what happened to one of my favorite writers — she had melanoma. She was Stage I. She was fine.
Then suddenly, a few years later, she wasn't fine; the cancer was in her lungs, stomach, kidneys, and everywhere else. It eventually killed her.
Cancer is no joke. Skin cancer is no joke.
When Relay for Life hits Hillsboro next weekend, it won't just be another event. It will be personal.
— JENNIFER WILSON
