Cancer scare helps husband identify melanoma on wife with video
Chris Thompson talks about the impact skin cancer has had on his life.
By fluke, Chris Thompson was diagnosed with the deadliest form of skin cancer in 2005.
The Regina businessman was seeing Dr. Roberta Mc Kay about a plantar wart on his left foot and asked the dermatologist to check a mole on his right forearm.
"The moment she looked at Duane Brown Jersey it I could tell that she was concerned," Thompson said. "She suggested that we have it removed and biopsied."
A biopsy revealed Thompson had melanoma, but the cancer had not spread to his lymph nodes, so he didn't require treatment.
"It was a fluke that I http://www.texansonlineprostore.com/WOMENS-WHITNEY-MERCILUS-JERSEY.html got diagnosed," he said.
When Thompson saw an unusual mole on the back of his wife, Sheila Sommervill, he urged her to Duane Brown Texans Jersey get checked.
"It wasn't raised at all, but it had an unusual edge," he said. "It looked like the edge of a coastline."
Sommervill was diagnosed with melanoma five years after her husband.
"Had I not had that experience, I wouldn't have been as observant and I wouldn't have known what to look for," Thompson said. "I consider my experience a blessing in many ways. I was blessed that it was caught in time before it really impacted my life."
Growing up on a farm and later as a seasonal construction worker, Thompson didn't use sunscreen.
"I ran around in shorts and without a shirt all the time," he said. "You just did that in the '60s and '70s."
As a youth, Sommervill spent a lot of time in the sun at the family cottage and as a lifeguard. Prior to their cancer diagnoses, she and Thompson went to tanning salons before their annual winter holidays.
"I haven't been near them since my cancer experience," Thompson said.
Now the 52 year old has annual physicals and is checked by www.texansonlineprostore.com/WOMENS-TOM-SAVAGE-JERSEY.html McKay every six months.
"When you live in Saskatchewan and deal with our winters, it's so nice to see the sun and feel its warmth, but I don't go into the sun with the intent of getting a suntan," he said.
"Skin cancer is the most common cancer in Saskatchewan and is almost entirely Johnathan Joseph Jersey preventable," said Donna Ziegler, director of cancer control for the Canadian Cancer Society in Saskatchewan.
Canadians must do more to protect themselves from damaging ultraviolet radiation, according to Canadian Cancer Statistics 2014, a report which is to be released today.
In Canada, an estimated 6,500 new cases of malignant melanoma and another 76,100 cases of nonmelanoma skin cancers are expected to be diagnosed in 2014.
Melanoma is the deadliest type of skin cancer. It starts in the cells that produce the colour (right between the epidermis and dermis, which is deeper) and can quickly spread into lymph nodes. Non melanoma, the most common skin cancer, starts in the skin cells in the epidermis, either in the deeper cells (basal) or the top layer of skin cells (squamous).
In 2011, there were 3,023 cases of non melanoma skin cancer and 127 cases of melanoma diagnosed in Saskatchewan, and the number is rising. Skin cancer cases in the province exceed the number of breast, prostate, colorectal and lung cancer cases added together.
The risk of melanoma due to intense UV exposure, especially during childhood, is almost double in people with fair skin, red hair and multiple or atypical moles. It's estimated children and adolescents who get five or more sunburns have double the risk for melanoma later in life.
A number of groups, including the Canadian Cancer Society, have been advocating for a provincewide ban on indoor tanning for youths.
On Tuesday, Health Minister Dustin Duncan reiterated that Saskatchewan isn't looking Johnathan Joseph Elite Jersey at an outright ban, but the province is looking at Manitoba's tanning regulations where youths under 18 must have parental permission before they can go to tanning salons.