Hi. I’m Melanoma…..The Unpopular Cancer

One of my blog’s followers recently saw this slogan emblazoned on a t-shirt. How true this is. (By the way, she’s an awareness crusader with an inspiring blog at www.adventurewithmelanoma.blogspot.com.) But I think there’s something happening here, and the guests of this Hotel are starting to build a bit more brand awareness. The national media folks actually paid a slight bit of attention to the FDA’s approval of Ipilimumab for Stage IV treatment. (By the way, I think Ipilumabab’s brand name “Yervoy” sounds like a Yiddish toast.) And the media is also catching on to the fact that melanoma diagnoses are increasing among young women—to the point where melanoma is just about as big a problem for this demographic group as that popular pink cancer.

But we still have a very long, long way to go. Get this, my wife and I were buying a memory card for our digital camera the other day and they actually come in pink, with a portion of the sales proceeds supposedly going to the “Guess Who” Foundation. Pink memory cards? Yikes, I suspect the time will come when I can only find razor blades in pink. Maybe some tanning salon industry trade group has decided to “sponsor” melanoma and I just haven’t heard about it, but I don’t know of any commercial product or service I can buy that benefits melanoma. (For the record, I bought the manly black model of memory card from the same manufacturer, in a package that didn’t include a black ribbon logo.)

But here’s a song of hope, sung to the tune of Buffalo Springfield’s classic, “Something’s Happening Here”.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5M_Ttstbgs

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a doc with sunscreen over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop, children, watch those rays
Everybody see what tannin’ pays

There's battle lines being drawn
No tumor’s right it’s everybody's wrong
Survivors speaking their minds
Getting so much assistance from behind

I think it's time we stop, hey, watch those rays
Everybody see what tannin’ pays

What a field-day for the heat
Ten thousand joggers in the street
Singing songs and wearing pink signs
Mostly say, hooray for our kind

It's time we stop, hey, watch those rays
Everybody look what tanning pays

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You have a bad scan, the docs come and take you away

We better stop, hey, watch those rays
Everybody see what tannin’ pays
Stop, hey, watch those rays
Everybody see what tannin’ pays
Stop, now, watch those rays
Everybody see what tannin’ pays
Stop, children, watch those rays
Everybody see what tannin’ pays

The melanoma program at the University of Colorado Cancer Center participated in the clinical trial research that led to Ipilumabab’s approval by the FDA; they deserve your support.