Stacey Escalante
In this day and age you'll find extreme skiers, ultra marathoners, and triathletes. People who push their bodies over the limit, going above and beyond in order to reach a certain goal.When I look at my life, there's one arena where I was an extremist. I went to great lengths to get the perfect tan. It was an obsession. There's even a term for that obsession called "tanorexic." Tanorexics are people who are addicted to tanning. Looking back, I admit I had a problem. Living in Southern California for most of my life, I went to the beach all of the time. I fried my skin with baby oil and rarely wore sunscreen. I would even lay out on foil sometimes. When I became a teenager, I started using tanning beds on a regular basis, especially in the winter. And when I moved to Las Vegas in 1997, I couldn't stand frying in 110 degree weather, so I went to the tanning salon at least once a week. I hated being pale and I loved the golden brown look. Most people would probably agree that tanned skin is beautiful but there's also a very ugly side. My vanity came at a very high price.
At the age of 34, I was diagnosed with Stage III malignant melanoma. I had only been married 3 years and had a 2 year-old son and a 6 month-old daughter. They say the date you're told you have cancer is a date that you'll never forget-- and they're right. On June 22, 2005, my life changed forever. It turns out a small mole on my back, about the size of a pencil eraser, was a malignant tumor. That was just the tip of the iceberg. The tumor was so deep, the cancer spread to a lymph node in my groin. I had two surgeries within two months. One was at the John Wayne Cancer Institute in LA, home to some of the country's best melanoma experts. I was there for seven weeks laying flat on my back so the fluid would drain from my groin. Matt, my husband would bring the kids to see me. But I would sob every Monday when they left. The hardest thing to accept was I couldn't take care of my own kids... I had to worry about beating cancer and quite frankly, worry about dying. I was facing one of the biggest challenges of my life at a relatively young age. The perfect tan suddenly became so trivial.
All my life I heard about skin cancer but I never knew that it could be that serious. I consider myself well educated, a graduate of UCLA, but I was very ignorant when it came to skin cancer. I'm finding I'm not alone. It's just as bad as having breast, lung, or brain cancer. It's been 2 years since my diagnosis and I just finished treatment. I was on a regimen of subcutaneous injections of GM-CSF to boost my immune system. I get organ, bone, and brain scans every 6 months because there's a 30 percent the cancer will return. Just like Lance Armstrong says, cancer may leave your body, but it never leaves your life. I hope that's something you'll never have to experience.
My doctors say there's a 90 percent chance my skin cancer was caused by sun and UVA/UVB exposure. So my message to you is.. Wear sunscreen! You don't have to be a hermit but you do have to take the proper precautions when outside... especially living here in the Nevada desert. My doctors say use an SPF of 45 and put it on at least every 2 hours.
The other lesson is making sure you get your skin checked by a doctor. My first trip to the dermatologist was when I was diagnosed with the cancer. I put off going to the doctor and therefore, put myself in a very bad situation. Skin cancer is the most treatable of cancers if it's caught early. At the same token, melanoma is the fastest growing cancer in the U-S. Nevada has more cases of melanoma than the national average. People are dying from it. I was dying for the perfect tan and look what happened to me.
I've been cancer free two years. They say that every year that goes by without a recurrence, you should celebrate. I have two celebrations under my belt. On June 22, 2008, let's make it number three!
Stacey Escalante