Visit Your Dermatologist At Least Once a Year

At age 66 years, Iowa Supreme Court Justice Darryl Hecht recently died of a melanoma that wasn't caught in time. Melanomas can be cured if caught early, but they have to be caught early. If they grow down under the skin and spread to the rest of the body, the jig is up. Busy people often don't think to get their skin checked and they should.

Melanoma is in my family. My Uncle Dick Houser, who flew B-29 bombers in WWII, died on his 26th birthday from a melanoma on his shoulder. Family history is significant. My father, Uncle Dick's younger brother, had the very tops of his ears imperceptibly removed and his face acid washed due to skin cancer. The result was smooth, unwrinkled skin. He looked 20 years younger.

I remember when our son was a boy and playing soccer, and one teammate's mother had red hair, pale skin, and freckles.

On the sidelines she told me that she had recently had surgery.

"I thought it was just a bunch of freckles run together," she said, clearly surprised at what the doctor found.

It was a melanoma. A surgeon removed a chunk of her cheek, but did such a good job I could barely tell.

Rosemary Conzemius, my mother-in-law, had what one of my sisters-in-law indignantly argued was just a "sun spot" on the top of her head. It was a sun spot all right. Rosemary was a professional baseball player during WWII and always active in sports, including golf, tennis, and bowling until her partners died and she was too elderly to participate any more. She was out in the sun a lot and her hair was thin, like mine.

Her "sun spot" was a carcinoma (basal cell?) the size of a quarter. At University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics Dr. Marlon Hansen removed the carcinoma and put her scalp with hair on it back over the excision so you couldn't even tell he'd operated. He did a beautiful job.

Rosemary lived to be almost 88 years old.

Jim, her son and my husband, and I go to Jody McKee, P.A., at Town Square Dermatology on Sixth Street in Coralville. She is very nice, conscientious, and we really like her.

Almost none of the skin spots we worry about are anything to worry about. It was that little black spot that looked like somebody took a permanent black ink pen and made a dot on my shoulder, a spot I didn't notice, that had to go. I think it was a basal cell carcinoma.

It's those little moles with barely detectible little shadows of a different color on my legs that need to be photographed monthly to see if they change in color and size. Could they be melanomas?

When you look for moles that might become melanomas, look for

Asymmetry (irregular border)

Border

Color changes (different colors on one mole could indicate a melanoma)

Diameter (greater than 1/4 inch)

Evolving (changing in one way or multiple ways over time)

Better yet, see a dermatologist. I can't tell, but Jody McKee can.