Adventures With My Enemy…Melanoma
This blog is written by Chelsea, 25, a want-to-be Carrie Bradshaw, and a Stage III Melanoma Diva. Instead of letting this cancer destroy her life, she is determined to share her experiences with others and promote melanoma awareness. After all, melanoma is so much more than just skin cancer.
Alisa is happily married and has three beautiful sons. She was diagnosed with recurrence of stage lV melanoma in February 2011. Also, her sister’s oldest son was just diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer, and started his chemotherapy treatments at same day that she found her sickness.
Carol is the pastor of Warren Plains United Methodist Church in Warrenton, NC. She is married and they have a grown daughter and grown son and granddaughter. She has had a mole on her upper left arm for long time. In March 2008, the mole started changing, a bubble at the tip of the mole and in two weeks the whole mole was raised. It was Stage 3B Melanoma.
Black is the New Pink – Fight Melanoma!!!
Al lost his brother, Jeff to Melanoma who was diagnosed in 2004. Jeff had it cut out. In the spring of 2010, he found a dry patch on his right cheek; the Melanoma was back after six years. Again, he had treatments but a month later, another patch appeared. In August of 2010, the Melanoma was back…only this time it had metastasized to his brain and lungs. Al’s hope is that people will become more aware of the dangers of skin cancer before scheduling a tanning appointment or venturing outdoors.
Blog for a Cure – Betty’s Cancer Blog
This will be her journal while treating her skin cancer. She started her treatment on Sept. 15, 2010, and will try to post each day and maybe by sharing her treatment it will help someone else who also suffers from skin cancer.
Chaotically Precise: Life, Love, and Melanoma
Les is a wife, mother and pediatric nurse practitioner. In 2003, she was diagnosed with Melanoma. In November 2009, they found a tumor in her brain that most likely a metastasis. This blog is the story of living in spite of melanoma, metastasis, vaccines, anti PD1, lung removal, and stereotactic radiation. The story of life with family and friends.
Nicole’s husband Steve was diagnosed with Stage lV Melanoma in January of 2012. When he was diagnosed, they immediately began reading melanoma blogs to help get an idea on what to expect with treatment, treatment options, to have some hope, etc. They are hoping that their blog will offer these things to others in return.
In June 2013, Emma was almost at the end of a year volunteering in Timor. She was looking forward to starting her masters in Occupational Therapy, and she was coming home to an exciting new relationship with future husband, Serge. At age of 22, Emma was diagnosed with stage 3 Melanoma in August 2013. Then, it advanced to stage 4.
Natalie is a 39 year-old mother of twins, from Meaford, Ontario. Also, she has been fighting an almost 2-year battle with stage 3b nodular melanoma AND stage 3 papillary thyroid cancers. She writes about her experience on her blog: Notes on the journey she didn’t plan to take……Motherhood, Melanoma, and making it to her Maserati ~as well as for awareness projects with groups such as Save Your Skin Foundation in BC, and Gilda’s Club Barrie ON.
I think I will go for a walk – My journey learning a new normal with cancer
This is Natalie Love’s story of how a diagnosis of stage IV metastatic melanoma in December 2009 has changed their lives. Living with this disease for the last 3 years while raising three young boys has had it’s challenges but they are determined to live every moment and make them all count!
Jillian’s Journey with Melanoma – A Mother’s Story
Susan created this blog when her daughter, Jillian was diagnosed with Stage lV Melanoma. She created this blog in an effort to help raise the awareness for melanoma, especially in young people.
Julie’s Journal: my life with melanoma!
Julie is a young woman, married and elementary school teacher who is diagnosed with Stage lV Melanoma Cancer in March 2011… She hopes to spread Skin Cancer Awareness.
This blogger was diagnosed with Melanoma cancer in November 1997. She has had somewhere around 100 areas freeze burned, the sweep and cancer on her head, 4 small biopsies on her mouth, forehead and cheek and back. She documented her Fluorouracil (Efudex) treatment with photographs and you can see that lots of side effects on her skin.
Lacey is the wife of the U.S. Surgeon General, and she has been diagnosed with melanoma twice. Her first diagnosis came on the heels of the removal of a suspicious mole in 2011. In March of 2018, she felt some bumps in her groin area on the same area her melanoma had been – it had returned, and had now spread to her lymph nodes. On this blog, she documents her experiences with surgery and immunotherapy treatment.
Erin was diagnosed with Stage 3B Melanoma in October 2010. She shares her living and adventure with beautiful pictures.
A Melanoma Journey – Sharing my experience with skin cancer
Sam is a 20-something year old Canadian who likes dogs, hiking and cross country skiing. Diagnosed with Stage 3 melanoma in February 2014.
Jimmy was riding his bicycle to work about 3 miles from home in July 2005. He was wearing a knapsack to carry his things and started noticing an ache on his back. He decided to go to the dermatologist and it was cancer.
This is a blog about the Rollercoaster Ride Imogen is on. She wrote the Melanoma isn’t any Rollercoaster she has been on before – there are loops to climb through, twists & turns … it seems to go very fast… but she can’t get off this Rollercoaster. She started this blog in September 2013 about 3 months after Diagnosis and the first of what she now believes will be many surgeries to come.
Mela-no-more – Gemma’s Facebook page
Gemma Cottam hadn’t thought anything was wrong with the mole that appeared on the side of her face when she was aged 15. Since she was diagnosed with melanoma at age of 25 in October 2015 she has had two operations, the last being just weeks before Christmas.
In 2005, Miss Melanoma was diagnosed with Stage II melanoma. In her blog she chronicles her treatments and life with skin cancer, while keeping a positive and cheery attitude towards her situation.
This blog is Seanty’s experience with Metastatic Malignant Melanoma. She was diagnosed in March 2006 with a nodular Malignant Melanoma, which went from stage 2 to stage 3 quite rapidly during treatment.
Katie Wiles is a young melanoma survivor who went to a tanning salon when she was a teenager. This blog is dedicated to raising awareness about melanoma and helping young women love the skin they were born in.
Real Life Stories about Melanoma
Raising awareness through education promoting prevention and early detection campaigning for change
Real People, Real Stories – Melanoma Network of Canada
The Melanoma Network of Canada (MNC) was founded in 2009 by Annette Cyr, a patient and three-time survivor of melanoma. MNC was founded to respond to the need for patients in Canada to have a nationally-based organization to coordinate educational and prevention efforts, provide a strong voice for advocacy, and assist in efforts to target funding for melanoma research.
Timna was born a baby with fair skin. They lived in New Mexico and California, spending a LOT of time outside, dressed in minimal clothing. In 2008, at 38, she went to her dermatologist to show her a tiny black speck on the bottom of her right foot. It was melanoma. Three years later, she had her second melanoma on her right forearm, found in 2011 at one of her regularly scheduled dermatology visits. In 2012, she found Primary Acquired Melanosis of her left eye.
Save Your Skin Foundation – blog
The Save Your Skin Foundation was created by North Vancouver, BC, Canada resident Kathy Barnard and her friends, family, and colleagues. Kathy was diagnosed with stage 4 malignant melanoma in 2003. Save Your Skin’s immediate goals are to raise awareness of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers, to provide melanoma patients with access to information about trial drugs, emotional and financial support, and to provide support to the new wave of melanoma survivors that is beginning to emerge due to the success of trial treatments.
In February of 2008, Christina was diagnosed with Stage 1 Melanoma while she was 7 ½ months pregnant with her second child. One day in January 2010, Christina discovered a small firm, round lump in her groin. A lymph node biopsy had confirmed that the melanoma had returned that is now stage 3. In June of 2010, the melanoma had returned in her lungs that is Stage 4 metastatic melanoma. Christina knows that writing on this blog will be therapeutic for her as she goes through this trial, and she also hopes she can help others along the way!!!
Holly is a wife, sister, proud aunt, graphic designer, Ironman and age-group triathlete, Melanoma cancer survivor, amateur photographer, 2x Bengal cat owner and she manages a running program for cancer survivors called CANCER_TO_5K. Holly was diagnosed with Metastatic Melanoma cancer when she was 34 years old.
Rich’s blog reflects an ongoing quest to find the good stuff and the funny stuff he has stumbled into during his stay at The Hotel Melanoma since receiving a Stage lllc diagnosis in 2003.
Kevin Lankes is author of Metastatic Memories” and blogger of Zen of Metastasis. He was diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma at age of 25. He grew up in a small town in Central Pennsylvania.