BECAUSE OTHERWISE

I’m one of the luckiest of the unlucky. My melanoma grew at a majestic and luxurious pace - when we went back and looked at pictures closely, we could see the beginnings of the cancer from four years ago; a tiny little spot on the tattoo on my right arm, just out of my view.

My wife had asked me about it a few times, ‘what’s that on your arm’, over the last couple years. Two days before Christmas 2024, she said ‘You should have Nath take a look at it.’ I managed to not roll my eyes too far back and agreed to have our son, Nath, who was finishing his fourth year of medical school take a look. He strolled into the kitchen for the examination and the look on his face conveyed more than his words ‘you need to have that biopsied because it’s a melanoma.’ I took photos and sent them to my family Doctor who quickly concurred and we were off to biopsy just after the new year - upon initial examination during the biopsy my dermatologist said ‘we’ll wait for the results, but it’s going to come back positive’. She has been amazing during this entire process and when she called four days later to let me know the biopsy confirmed it was a melanoma and stage 1B, I was elated - one of the luckiest of the unlucky.

A few weeks later, my dermatologist was carving an ice cream scoop of skin and tissue out of my arm. While we were talking during the procedure, she mentioned how some people come see her because of a thing on their skin they noticed just a few months ago, but they are already in stage 3 or 4. And then she said words I will always remember, ‘when you told me how long ago you saw your melanoma in pictures, I knew it was slow growing, because otherwise . . .’ and she stopped speaking. I have my second, three month follow up on August 13, 2025.

To help put an exclamation point on my melanoma experience, my son was on the last day of his neurology rotation when a man came in with stroke-like symptoms. It wasn’t a stroke. He had melanoma that had metastasized, the imaging of his brain revealed catastrophic spreading of cancer. His life span was now measured in months and not many of those. He was seven years younger than me. Nobody wants cancer, but if you find yourself facing it - I hope the outcome of your story is similar to mine.

So that ‘funny looking’ thing on your skin or the skin of someone you love - take a great big giant pause from your adventurous, fun, crazy-busy life - and go see your doctor. Early detection is incredibly important to improve your outcome - do it today . . . because otherwise . . .

May is skin cancer awareness month. I'm swimming 5 miles in May to help the American Cancer Society. This is a very meaningful cause for me. ACS has a platinum rating on GuideStar (the highest possible), so give with confidence! Please consider making a donation because every little bit helps. Thank you for your support!

Peace,

Tom

22 May 2025 update: 10,000 of 8,800 yards complete :-)

16 May 2025 update: 8800 of 8800 yards complete

13 May 2025 update: 7700 of 8800 yards complete

10 May 2025 update: 6500 of 8800 yards complete

8 May 2025 update: 5300 of 8800 yards complete

6 May 2025 update: 4200 of 8800 yards complete

4 May 2025 update: 3100 of 8800 yards complete

2 May 2025 Update: 1100 of 8800 yards complete