[ad_1]
Tereska James has a message for people of color: put sunscreen, slip a hat, look for shade – it's a myth that brown will protect you from skin cancer. Her family discovered the problem in September 2015, after the doctors discovered her sister, Tanya Haman, had stage four melanoma. In two months, she was dead, at the age of 44.
"It had already metastasized to his brain. She underwent chemotherapy and radiation therapy, but the cancer was very aggressive and the tumors very aggressive, and the treatment did not stop her from taking her course, "said Ms. James, who launched the Brown Skin Too Foundation. She will share her story tomorrow at a conference hosted by the Bermuda Cancer and Health Center.
According to the cancer charity, the incidence of melanoma is higher in Bermuda than elsewhere. And as people of color are more likely to know that they have advanced disease, they have a lower survival rate.
"I remember growing up, saying that I did not need SPF or sunscreen because of melanin in my skin," said Ms. James, who lives in Delaware. "I have a lot of friends who are part of the diaspora, family all over the world, and that's the message we've all grown up with. You think that you are immune but, although it is a preventive measure, it does not totally prevent you from getting skin cancer.
"Almost four years [since starting Brown Skin Too], I still meet people who are shocked that people of color can have skin cancer.
"It's very shocking when you think about the amount of information available.
"I think that comes largely from if you do not see someone who looks like you who has been touched by this disease, so you miss the message."
Ms. Haman got sick on Labor Day weekend. The doctors told her that the headaches and vomiting were probably caused by a virus and that she needed rest and fluids. The day after the holidays, she got in her car to go to work and could not start it.
"She called my mother, who got in the car and started it perfectly fine," said Ms. James.
In the end, his sister had lost all feeling of feeling on the right side.
An emergency room scan identified cancer. A week later, melanoma was diagnosed at stage four. "The shock, of course, was that it was at this advanced stage," Ms. James said. "When we heard about melanoma, we took a break: skin cancer?
"Blacks do not have skin cancer. When she initially lost all feeling, we thought that she had a stroke.
"Never, in a million years, would we have thought about skin cancer.
The fact that her sister "used to use sunscreen for her son and for herself" only added to the family's confusion.
They learned that exposure to the sun is responsible for about 90% of skin cancers, but not all of them.
"Other factors could be involved, such as genetics, if there is a history of skin cancer in the family, which we did not actually have," said Ms. James. "It's the mystery of the disease.
"We know it's bad to use a tanning bed, lie in the sun and get burned in the sun.
"But for blacks, when a skin cancer is diagnosed, it often happens that this is not the point of looking for it.
"It's usually in places not exposed to the sun – in the middle of the toes, fingers, or even bads."
The more she read, the more she understood how "serious" the situation was.
"I realized, wow, that we can not do anything to change the course of its results," said Ms. James, marketing manager, who put her 20 years of experience at Brown Skin's service Too. "After her death, a few weeks later, I told my mother that we needed to do something to inform people of this disease and the impact it could have on people of color.
"I did not want another mother, daughter, son, family member or friend to live through what we endured for an illness that [has a survival rate of] 100 percent when taken early enough.
"Recent studies show that the incidence of skin cancer has increased – in part because people are becoming more aware; more people will be checked.
"With people of color, typically [their GP] I would not recommend a skin test unless it is obvious.
"Skin cancer is not high on the priority list, especially when you talk about the prevalence of large cancers that are more prevalent in our community."
Brown Skin Too organizes a children's workshop every year to make sun protection a habit even when parents do not teach it.
"If you live in an area exposed to the sun daily, if you grew up in this environment and you were not touched [you might say]"That's what I mean and I'm right that this message is important to me?" But if you believe in global warming, the UVA and UVB rays get stronger.
"In the future, the ozone layer is being depleted and the impact of these rays in the past is even more significant.
"It requires even more protection. If you do not take care of your skin, your skin will begin to show you the effects of not taking care of it. Do it, if only for vanity. "
• Listen to dermatologists Deborah Daly and Tereska James, founders of the Brown Skin Too Foundation, speaking at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute tomorrow at 5:30 pm. The entrance is free. For more information: www.brownskintoofoundation.org; www.cancer.bm
Source link
