A survivor's story
Wearing sunscreen can help protect individuals from melanoma and other skin cancers.
I grew up in Maryland, so I understand what it's like to look forward to being in the sun. People are tired of the snow and cold. When the summer hit, we would lie outside from Memorial Day to Labor Day with baby oil. I remember thinking you were supposed to burn before you could start to tan. There wasn't much talk about sun safety growing up.
Fast forward to February 2001. Curt was at spring training with the Arizona Diamondbacks [his former team] when I found out that I had melanoma. I was 33, and we had three kids at the time. I once had a blood clot, so I'd already had my immortality put in check, but I don't think anything compares to when you have cancer or when it comes into the vocabulary at your house. Whether you have Stage I or Stage IV, its in your life every single day.
After I was diagnosed, nobody acted the way I thought they would. It was because they didn't understand. They didn't think it was real. Like myself, I thought, 'Okay, I'll just cut it off. When you get melanoma, you can't imagine that its disfiguring or that you could die from it. Sometimes the only way I can make people listen now is to jolt them by showing the 25 scars on my back.
One of the biggest shocks was going to look for information after being diagnosed and not finding much. There were no advocacy organizations devoted to skin cancer. If I thought there was any organization in place, I certainly— after giving birth to my fourth child—would have joined its efforts, rather than starting one.
"After I was diagnosed, nobody acted the way I thought they would. It was because they didn't understand. They didn't think it was real. Like myself, I thought, 'Okay, I'll just cut it off."
The statistics are really disturbing. One in five children will grow up to develop skin cancer, and only 3 percent of schools have sunprotection policies, like regulations for hats or sunscreen. We started raising the money for SHADE because it's 115 degrees during the day in Arizona, and my childrens school didn't have a shade covering over the playground. This is a public school in a fairly affluent area, and it was raising money to buy one. If theirs was having trouble, the schools that can barely afford books are never going to put their money into a shade covering. So starting the foundation was my way of protecting all the kids, not just mine.
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