Greetings, and thanks for following these #strongtosave posts…
Before we consider my cryptic title, please tip your hat to the lone dozen survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor on that fateful Sunday morning, December 1941.
God bless this special dozen of centenarians for what they endured. We are indebted to them, and to the millions of service veterans who wore, wear, and will wear the fabric of our country in wartime and peacetime.
Can we agree that No one wants to catch Crabs?
Full disclosure:
I stand before you with a malignant disease, yet with the prospect of thriving and striving for a very long time…My words are words of conditional hope for coping and beating a dis-ease. They are cancers far more insidious than mine, as they are usually visible.. .See something, say something – right?
Please stay with me as your tour guide on this journey from ancient Egypt, to Hippocrates, to the Dermatology clinics of America that help some of us fend off America’s top Cancers.
Under My Skin
A decade ago, a Navy Dermatologist noted, then biopsied a freckle on the back of my left calf.
He offered, “I don’t think this spot is anything, yet let’s biopsy it – just in case…”
Then, a year ago, a civilian Dermatologist biopsied a freckle on the helix of my right ear. “Just in case”…
Are there similarities in my paired parable?
You betcha
- I received same-same yet abnormal messages – outside office hours – to call them right away.
- These skin problems of mine were defining issues with my largest bodily organ – namely my skin. As a six-foot mesomorph, the surface area of my skin is about 2 meters-squared.
- Nature and nurture, by these I mean inherited and acquired cell growth that has gone viral, so to speak, are my kryptonite for the balance of my days.
Yes,… I have skin cancers. My first diagnosed skin cancers were about 40 years ago. I’ll likely trend for more for the rest of my days…
As an equal opportunity host for abnormal cell growth, I have “earned” multiple battle ribbons for:
- basal,
- squamous, and
- melanoma cancers.
Plus, I sport more pre-cancerous knife fights and uncomfortable treatment scars than I care to count.
If you could see me now, I have blue eyes, very light skin, and I live in sunny climates. My traits are not exactly a royal hand for winning a card game with harmful UV rays as my adversary.
What you cannot see is my BRAF gene sequence.
Nor can you examine the double helixes of my sainted Mom’s DNA after she succumbed to melanoma.
Remember inherited traits? Boy, do they matter. By the way, my younger sister has also been treated for melanoma… Three is bad company for inheritance of “onkos” gene sequences!
El Sol contributes to many, many deaths in our world. Yes, solar rays can inflame our bodily systems in the near-term and for decades after exposure.
Granted, the Universe doesn’t owe you or me anything at all.
So… we should be smart… We need to be smart in an uncaring universe.
We owe ourselves self care that is “in time”, affordable, and effective.
Yes, a PREVENT Defense can help you and me extend our game of life via self care and early interventions!
Back to that largest organ in our bodies, by “real estate” …that expansive Epidermis and its underlying layers… And, back to Crabs….
Did you know that the gent whose oath defines western medicine generated the term “Cancer” 25 centuries ago?
– Good ol’ Hippocrates observed bodily spots that were swollen, hard, and showed radiated blood vessels resembling CRABs or KARKINOS in his language.
– Or, perhaps the image of some “thing” grasping or pinching a body to generate pain factored into his terminology?
If a ancient Greek patient had KARKINOS, her or his treatments might include one of these 3, namely:
1) cauterization,
2) binding the CRAB (Tumor) site with fresh meat, then shifting to grease, honey and lint as topical treatments until the patient recovered, or DIDN’T.
3) Nothing – if the CRAB was growing in a female’s breast region.
Aren’t we fortunate that we have progressed from fresh meat and doing nothing?
I’ll toss in another scary word of Greek origin “ONKOS” meaning Tumor.
Do you remember the IMMACULATE RECEPTION in Pro Football history?
Well, 1 in about 100,000 patients with an ONKOS may miraculously gain Spontaneous Remission.
Yup – 0.001 percent of patients that oncologists treat heal themselves. Get this – The experts don’t know why Spontaneous Remission can occur.
Is the Universe laughing at us?
As laughter can be medicinal in our world, what do you think of this situation in an Oncology Ward…
An Oncologist walks into the exam room with 2 types of news . He says,
I have not so good news – you have a tumor .
Our “Good news is that your small tumor has a big sense of humor.”
The diseased patient asks, “Really? How do you know?”
The oncologist replied:
“Because we radiate it… and it lightens up.”
I told my Mohs skin surgeon I was worried.
He said, “Stay positive — we’ll shrink the problem together.”
Whether it is nature or nurture that causes cell growth to grow outta control, what I call Fire water can be applied early and with gusto – for pre-cancerous patches and non-malignant, superficial tumors.
Fire water? Informally Yes. Formally no, although I have been tempted to swill an alcoholic fire water as an analgesic in this regimen…
For 35 years, my Dermatologists have prescribed my topical chemotherapies with the official name of Flurouoracil (phonetically pronounced floor-oh-YOOR-uh-sil or in medical shorthand 5-FU).
5-FU has marketing names like Efudix and Carac. 5-FU is a prescription-only topical chemotherapy that treats sun-damaged skin and some early forms of skin cancer. It works by destroying abnormal, rapidly growing cells while doing little harm to our normal healthy skin.
(Parenthetically this chemotherapy is also used for some major malignant cancers inside bodies…)
Well, you may get a Freddy Kruger and/or a bad sunburn appearance for a few weeks, as I do, with my wacko skin issues. This guy “has it easy”.
- Keep this water soluble drug away from your eyes as it intentionally causes pharmacological irritation to its applied areas in short order
You just heard that 5-FU (Fire Water or ointment) does not affect malignant melanomas. Yeti, it can deny some squamous cells that can evolve into malignant melanomas.
So, apply (don’t drink 5-FU Efudix) as early as possible.
Accept discomfort and pain to gain an upperhand over non-linear cell growths like mine.
Note: Yes, there are other topical treatments for what 5-FU tackles that involve irradiation with light. I’ve tried those too and naturally nicknamed those as “blue light specials”.
I have nothing against the high income and easy lifestyle that Dermatologists earn for treating my epidermis and dermis.
I am against stupidity, as I showed in my case with my few deep sunburns as a teenager.
If trivial pursuits interest you,
The oldest ONKOS was found in a South African humanoid’s skeleton that was dated to be 1.7 million years old.
Melanomas in the USA had a death rate of about 2 per 100,000 people in 2021, about 8,000 deaths annually… That is a high number, yet Australia and New Zealand have higher incidences. It is good to rank low when melanomas are the morbid matter!
Muerto!
A melanoma death occurs each and every hour in America. I don’t have a precise number or percentage of how many melanomas are preventable. Yet, whatever the number, it is too lofty. We can do better. Let’s start today.
Takeaways?
Cancers are not new. Tumors and Crabs have been diagnosed since 3000 BC.
Most skin cancers are preventable with common sense and avoiding “bad” sun exposures.
When prevention wasn’t present, or when nature picked on you and your BRAF genes, see your medical teams often. I mean that!
By all means, Accept a month of redness and irritation from topical fire water to hopefully avoid the scalpel and malignant tumors that can kill if not treated early.
Be careful out there and protect the largest organ in your physical portfolio!
DF
ps – Conservative MDs want us to apply sunscreen every day, whatever the season or UV level.