Independence Day – Melanoma: The Skin We're In

Knee High by the Fourth of July

So whose knee are we talking here, anyway? I mean, if it’s mine the corn’s not meeting the standard. If it’s my “almost five” grandson, things are ahead of schedule! This year, gardening keeps me focused on life, on what might be if you believe.

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

Back in March, I was planning and planting my gardens, something I never had time for when reaching out and outreaching with literacy initiatives. Originally, I envisioned seedlings in the cellar as the good light and extra space seemed best. However, I learned I needed great light so plywood splayed around the living room and seeds germinated!

Seedlings!

Three Sisters Seedlings

Working with all my seedlings this Spring kept me busy enough (in and around dragging through the day!), and also got me to thinking, thinking about things other than cancer. Sunshine is for growing food, flowers, trees, and life. Flora, the goddess of flowers and nurturer of botany, needs light. Light is life.

Ironically, here I find myself dealing with metastatic melanoma and learning how to live with the sun and not directly in it. That same invaluable sunshine that gives life to us can also take it away. Each day I choose to find inspiration in the light, the power it brings to Mother Earth. Find your passion to see you through and the courage to stay out of the darkness!

Three Sisters Garden

One of four siblings, and with 3 of us females, I decided to try a Three Sisters Garden this year. Some of my seedlings included corn and winter squash. These are two of the Three Sisters vegetables, and I later planted bean seeds directly into the garden, representing the Three Sisters. The day I planted the seedlings of corn and squash, the clouds melted into rain. At first I thought it could be sister tears though quickly realized this gentle, unexpected rain was to settle the plants, to nurture, just as my sisters always had with me.

Remember the book Carrots Love Tomatoes? The Three Sisters Garden is of Native American origin and is a variation on companion planting. Each of these 3 plants, winter squash, beans and corn, provides nutrients and growing space for the others. I was reminded of this method last Fall when I read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. After borrowing this book from my library, I purchased a copy because it resonates with me deeply.

My two sisters have passed, each of a different cancer, and this is my way of recognizing the hole that lost love leaves and that we all incorporate loss into life. Nurturing ourselves, remembering others, and living the best damn life we’ve got today. My garden is definitely an experiment…in patience, in growth, and in the hope of tomorrow. But then, isn’t life an experiment as well?

Knee high by the Fourth of July? Hell, yeah! What are seeds of inspiration that you sow? Please comment on how you look to the positive! #threesistersgarden #melanoma #melanomatheskin #cancer #garden

We Can-cer vive!

Janis

Red, White, and You

The 4 B’s of Independence Day

Happy 4th of July! Celebrate your independence in breaking from the stereotype that a dark tan is healthy. Independence Day in the United States is a time for boating, barbecues, and beaches. Oh, yeah…it’s also a time for some of the best burns, sunburns that is.

Laughingly, in the past, I couldn’t understand why people went to the beach or barbecue if they wore all those clothes or hid under an umbrella. My sister and I called beach umbrellas “the impalers”, because of their potential to let loose and hurt someone (as well as those pale people sitting under them).

Open Minds, Open Umbrellas

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Now, I am one of those people. I even have a small umbrella that clips to my chair-perfect for those situations where there is no shade and I find myself caught in the sun. I keep it in the car. Sound extreme? Try having your head snapped down to a radiation table day after day to (hopefully) rid yourself of metastatic melanoma (to name just one treatment phase for melanoma cancer patients)…now that’s extreme. Suddenly, the idea of sun safety makes sense.

It’s great to be white, brown, or whatever your natural skin color is. In Victorian times, women wanted to whiten their skin as described on Women of the World’s site. The idea was that white skin indicated you were an aristocrat and not out working in the fields. While the extreme and unhealthy measures such as bathing in arsenic springs were prevalent, we know better now about whitening the skin. Today, we also know about reddening the skin and skin damage.

Burn Baby, Burn

Contemporary culture has given us more leisure. A less agrarian society (unfortunately), people enjoy free time. For generations, we’ve viewed darkening our skin as a sign of beauty. Media continues to depict tanned bodies as the beautiful, healthy look we crave. This needs to change because I’m just not craving my next immunotherapy. Are you?

#Naturalskinrocks, whatever your color-love you, love hue! Dana Farber Cancer Institute dedicates the 6th floor to melanoma and other skin cancers. That’s where I go for the clinical trial that I participate in on a regular basis. We’re all there together, terrified and seeking resolution, seeking life; every person with every skin color imaginable, seeking hope and answers.

Scan Versus Tan

Skin cancer and in particular, melanoma knows no color barrier, no discrimination here. Think your genes are meant for sunbathing, and that you are not going to get cancer because your genetic makeup is to have dark skin? We all think we are safe until we find ourselves on the 6th floor of Dana Farber. Now I scan (MRI, CAT, etc) instead of tan. I’m not wanting to scare you, I’m wanting you to help change our culture away from the solar genuflection that kills. Avoid the red, avoid the burn.

Celebrate Independence! Celebrate the red, white, and blue! Celebrate creating a culture of #sunsmarts. #melanomatheskin #melanoma #skincancer #naturalskinrocks #avoidtheburn #Happyfourthofjuly