Life has challenges. The more years we enjoy, the more challenges we will encounter.
As my years advanced I discovered that I had degenerative joint disease and arthritis. I wasn’t born with perfect joints, and in my late-40s discovered I would need to have my hip joints replaced.
Now, in my early 60s, I’ve discovered that I have a cancer challenge, too. Melanoma.
(Above photo by Andy Liss of me with his dad, George Liss, who was coincidentally wearing our Charities Challenge - Challenge Cancer 5k shirt (
http://www.charitieschallenge.org/html/challenge_cancer_5k.html) the day we departed Disney World, last Monday, January 13. This was one hour after I received by phone call from my doctor my melanoma diagnosis. I'll always remember that call! George and Andy heard my report after this photo. They're great guys, good friends, who are among the first to encourage me in my melanoma challenge. Thanks Liss-Men!)
I’ll be OK, because I know how to live well beyond cancer.
I will have ongoing cancer management responsibilities.
Yesterday I met with my oncologist, a fine doctor, who told me the following:
- Mine is a stage 1A melanoma (I caught it early, sought prompt medical intervention, including a biopsy of a mole on my leg last week, just days after my annual physical exam.)
- Monday, January 20, I will see a surgeon to arrange for more surgery very soon that will go well beyond the biopsied area in order to assure that all cancer cells have been surgically removed. No further cancer therapies are ordered.
- I will have a 90% chance of no recurrence of melanoma in the next 10 years.
- I will see a dermatologist twice a year for exams and screenings.
- I will continue to see the oncologist for blood screenings and chest x-rays (melanomas have a tendency to metastasize to lung cancers).
Along my melanoma management way I also want to encourage others to:
- Know your own and loved ones’ risk factors for cancers, melanoma in particular.
- Know how to reduce cancers risk factors.
- Know and recognizing early signs of cancer, melanoma in particular.
- Know and practice RxExercise – Exercise as Medicine – as part of cancer therapies management and recovery.
- Confidently know how to “Live well beyond cancer”.
For me, melanoma is not altogether a surprise diagnosis as I’ve known my risk factors: Blue eyes and light skin of Scandinavian genes, and repeated sunburns as a stupid kid without adequate adult understanding and supervision of sunburn risks to a young person.
Who used sunscreen or covered up against excessive sun exposure in the 1950s to 1960s? I didn’t.
I’ve also been monitoring a mole on the inside of my left knee area for a few years.
That mole has been slowly changing in appearance, alerting me to its nature perhaps being cancerous. Indeed it was.
(Notice how apparently insignificant a mole may appear, unless one has been careful to watch for observed changes in size, color(s), ragged edge, etc. Ignored and left untreated, this mole would eventually have become much more demanding of more medical care therapies, or even premature death.)
At my annual physical I called my physicians attention to that small mole. He listened to my report of its changing appearance over recent years, looked at it closely, and concluded it had just enough of a suspicious appearance to require a surgical biopsy of the area which he completed four days later.
That 3cm long oval biopsy sample around the mole was taken, and the incision stitched up, two days before I departed home in happy support of several friends who were going to run the Disney World Marathon.
No reason to mention this to these Disney-bound friends before I knew the pathology report.
That pathology report I received by phone from my good doctor on Monday morning while standing on queue to check my luggage at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort for departure from DW back to Minnesota. Yep. Diagnosis: Melanoma.
A cancer-curious coincidence of my times at Coronado Springs Resort at this early-January time for attending others’ running of the Disney World Marathon:
It was there at Coronado Springs in Disney World following our team’s completion of the DW Marathon that my dear friend and fellow marathon coach, Jeanne DeMartino, took me aside and quietly asked my opinion about a lump just below her collar bone. Arrrgghhhh! I’m not a physician, but knowing how Jeanne had lost her mom to breast cancer and that significant lump that had too quickly developed, my heart instantly broke. She had an appointment with her physician in the days following our return to MN. Within seven weeks Jeanne began her cancer-clearing therapies.
Best news: Jeanne was so strong going into those challenging cancer therapies, continued to be strong, and actively engaged in her cancer management, that she’s now already lived more than twice as long beyond her mom’s survival beyond her cancer diagnosis. Well done, Jeanne!
Good news for all of us who get a cancer diagnosis: Most cancers are now considered chronic diseases, like a diabetes diagnosis, and we each will live many years beyond these challenging diagnoses.
Coach Jeanne is doing exceedingly well and continuing to serve others in many active ways.
She’s my model of successful cancer management and living well beyond cancer.
Eleven years ago I had my first total hip replacement, followed three years later with the second total hip replacement. Why? Diagnosis: Congenital hip dysplasia that with the passing of about 47 years resulted in unavoidable degenerative joint disease (DJD) of the hip joints. I was born with malformed hip joints that would only last about 50 years.
Two years ago I learned my achy feet were due to congenitally malformed bones in my feet. Diagnosis: DJD of the metatarsal and carpal joints. This time the condition is inoperable, but manageable for a while with orthotics and metatarsal pads. Imagine: My feet may be perpetually achy, and progressively painful, but for now I can still work while moving about for most of a day.
I’m a lucky guy, a very fortunate fellow; I can still actively work at the health/fitness services I love to provide to others. So, I have a little discomfort in exchange for ongoing great satisfactions in health/fitness services to others.
Now at the beginning of this new year, 2014, presents me with this new challenge: Melanoma.
Yep. Life has challenges. I’ve seen and attended to so, so many others, like Coach Jeanne D, successfully negotiate a variety of health challenges. Brilliant!
I’ve had a few of my own challenges. I’ll have more in the years to come. I’m ready for this melanoma challenge.
Thanks for your prayers, encouragement, and especially for any steps alongside that you may share with me along our way as I continue to train for more road races.
Go me! Go you! Go us!
I may have canceled my travels to Maui in January 2014, but with lots of help I sent Melanoma packing from here in Minnesota. (I will return to Hawaii soon enough…who wants to join me? Go Hawaii…whenever you can!)
