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May is Melanoma Awareness Month, and every year when it comes around, I feel a pull in my chest\u2014equal parts grief and gratitude. It\u2019s the month I use my voice the loudest, because I know firsthand how quiet this disease can be\u2014until it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m Leah Adams. I\u2019m a melanoma survivor, a marathon runner, a former tanning bed user and an only child who watched her father fight stage 4 metastatic melanoma in his brain and lungs. I tell this story not because it\u2019s easy, but because I believe sharing it might save someone else from living it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
It started with my dad in August of 2019. My mom noticed a suspicious mole on his upper back and urged him to get it checked. He was 60, had fair skin, European descent and a history of sun damage that stretched back to my childhood\u2014summers mowing the lawn without a shirt on, golf rounds with no sunscreen, sunburns that turned into tans he didn\u2019t think twice about. His own father had dealt with basal cell and squamous cell skin cancer, so the risk was there. It just wasn\u2019t something we talked about.<\/p>\n
The dermatologist biopsied the mole. A week later, the results came back: stage 0 melanoma, also called \u201cmelanoma in situ.\u201d The earliest possible stage. He underwent a wide local excision to clear margins and was told to return every six months for skin checks. I exhaled. I told myself, \u201cHe caught it early. It\u2019s fine. That\u2019s what happens to people his age.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was 25 at the time. And I truly believed melanoma was an older person\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n
One month after my dad\u2019s diagnosis, my mom found a mole on my chest that didn\u2019t look right. She looked at me the same way she had looked at my dad and said, \u201cYou just saw what your dad went through. Go get a skin check.\u201d<\/p>\n
I rolled my eyes, gently and thought: \u201cI\u2019m 25\u2026almost 26. That can\u2019t happen to me.\u201d But I also knew my history. I grew up in Midwest Ohio, pale and determined to be tan every summer. I\u2019d spent years baking in my backyard without sunscreen, chasing a color that didn\u2019t come naturally to me. When I was 16, my mom actually had to sign a waiver for me to go into a tanning bed for the first time, and we went together. <\/p>\n
By the time I was in college, I was going regularly, taking advantage of every special the tanning salon near campus offered. I kept going through grad school. My mom started noticing I was getting darker, that the moles on my body were multiplying like my dad\u2019s. She would say, \u201cLeah, watch how many times you go. Those aren\u2019t good for you.\u201d I heard her. I just didn\u2019t really listen.<\/p>\n
But after my dad\u2019s diagnosis, her voice stuck with me. I Googled photos of melanoma. I tried to convince myself the mole on my chest was nothing. And then, to get that assurance officially, I made my first appointment with a dermatologist.<\/p>\n
I was freshly 26. I had never had a skin check before. I remember feeling exposed\u2014not just physically, but in every way. They asked about my sun history, my family history and whether I wore sunscreen. They looked at me from head to toe. And the only mole they flagged was the one my mom had noticed.<\/p>\n
They biopsied it and told me I\u2019d have results in three to five business days.<\/p>\n
Day five came and went. Then day seven. Then day ten. I called the office, slightly uneasy, and was told the mole had looked so atypical that they\u2019d sent it for additional testing and staining. I didn\u2019t know what that meant. I just knew it wasn\u2019t the quick, easy answer I\u2019d been hoping for.<\/p>\n
On day 14, I got the call. I was with my boyfriend (now my husband) when my dermatologist asked if I had time to go over my biopsy results. The second I heard her tone, I knew.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately,\u201d she said, \u201cthat mole came back as Stage 1A, bordering Stage 1B malignant melanoma.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remember the room going from color to black and white. My dad\u2019s had been stage 0. Mine was higher. Already worse. Because of the depth of the melanoma and my family history, they needed to get me into surgery immediately. They also wanted to perform a sentinel lymph node biopsy to see if the cancer had spread.<\/p>\n
Two weeks later, I was in an outpatient surgical center under full anesthesia for eight hours. The only other surgery I\u2019d ever had was getting my wisdom teeth out. This was nothing like that. When I woke up, and they showed me my incision sites\u2014a significant wound on my chest where they\u2019d taken a wide margin of skin and an incision under my arm where they\u2019d removed lymph nodes\u2014it hit me. This was real. This was my body. This was my life now.<\/p>\n
Before the melanoma, running was my anchor. It still is. The first thing I asked after waking up from surgery was when I could run again. The answer was: not for a while. The lymph node removal put me at risk for lymphedema, and my incision sites needed time. I was told to rest when what I desperately wanted was to move.<\/p>\n
That period after surgery was one of the darker stretches of my life. I was 26, recovering from surgery for the deadliest form of skin cancer, waiting to find out if it had spread to my lymph nodes, and suddenly reckoning with the fact that my life was going to look different\u2014no tanning beds, serious sun protection, regular dermatology appointments for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n
A few weeks later, I got the call I\u2019d been dreading and praying over at the same time: the melanoma had not spread to my lymph nodes. It had not reached my organs. I was clear.<\/p>\n
I cried. And then I started figuring out who I was on the other side of it.<\/p>\n
I spent the next year or so in trial and error, finding sunscreens I loved, building a sun-protective wardrobe and slowly opening up on social media about what I\u2019d been through. Then the pandemic hit, and with it came isolation. I didn\u2019t know anyone my age who had been through melanoma. Sharing my story online felt like reaching out in the dark, hoping someone would take my hand.<\/p>\n
And then, in January 2021, my dad had a seizure while driving with my mom.<\/p>\n
He was in the ICU. I couldn\u2019t even be with him because of pandemic restrictions, which allowed only one visitor per patient. When they did a brain scan, they found lesions. The pattern was unmistakable to the doctors: stage 4 metastatic melanoma. A full-body scan confirmed it. His lungs, they said, lit up like a Christmas tree.<\/p>\n
His stage 0 melanoma from 2019 had, quietly and without symptoms, spread to his brain and his lungs. All of it was inoperable. The only options were Gamma Knife radiation for the brain and immunotherapy for the lungs.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m an only child. My mom became his primary caregiver. I became his secondary caregiver. Watching a parent navigate stage 4 cancer while still processing your own diagnosis with the same disease\u2014just at a different stage\u2014is a particular kind of heartbreak I don\u2019t have the right words for. The radiation came with brutal side effects, including brain swelling. The immunotherapy, which works by activating the immune system to fight the cancer rather than attacking the cancer directly, landed him in the emergency room repeatedly in those early rounds.<\/p>\n
Melanoma cost my dad his ability to drive for nearly two years after his seizure. It forced him into early retirement. It has affected him emotionally, financially and cognitively. All because of something that was, at its root, preventable.<\/p>\n
I could have let all of this harden me. I could have gone quiet and bitter and angry. I chose differently. I turned pain into purpose and took my story to social media.<\/p>\n
Every week, I get messages\u2014from high school friends, from strangers, from people who\u2019ve been following along\u2014asking for sunscreen recommendations, sharing that they finally made a skin check appointment, sometimes even sending me photos of moles they\u2019re worried about (to which I always say: please go see a professional for that one). Those messages are why I keep going. They are proof that telling the truth about what happened to my family is doing something.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve gotten involved with melanoma organizations. I\u2019ve spoken about my story at events around the country. I\u2019ve built a community online with people who truly understand\u2014not just sympathize, but get it\u2014because they\u2019ve lived it, too. Some of them I\u2019ve only met once, at a melanoma conference. Some I haven\u2019t met in person yet. But that connection is real, and it matters more than I can say.<\/p>\n
Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer. It is also one of the most preventable cancers. And it does not care how old you are, what your skin tone is or whether you\u2019ve ever thought of yourself as someone who \u201cburns easily.\u201d I was 26. My dad was 60 when his was caught, and 62 when it came back with a vengeance.<\/p>\n
A tan is not healthy. It is your skin\u2019s DNA signaling that is damaged. Tanning beds are not safe. Sunburns are not just uncomfortable; they accumulate. And skin checks save lives. My mom\u2019s eyes saved mine.<\/p>\n
If you haven\u2019t had a skin check recently (or ever), please make an appointment. If someone in your life has been putting it off, be the voice in their head like my mom was in mine. If you see something that doesn\u2019t look right, say something.<\/p>\n
This month, and every month, I\u2019ll keep telling my story; I\u2019ll keep talking about it as many times as I can. Because the more we share, the more lives we protect.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n