From Parkinson's Awareness Month to Melanoma Awareness Month
“You don't die from Parkinson’s, you die with Parkinson’s.”~Michael J. Fox
“When it rains it pours and when it shines you get Melanoma.”~Sol Luckman
It's easy to be unaware of a particular awareness month until you suddenly find yourself part of that community.
At the beginning of 2012, I knew little about Parkinson’s Disease. By year’s end, I was on overdrive trying to find out as much information about the disease as possible. I needed to know if I was going to be able to live with Parkinson’s. I needed to know how it was going to change my life.
A few months later, I found out that there was an actual awareness month for P.D. April. Thirty days to spread the news. Thirty days to let people know about Parkinson’s. Thirty days that will wear you down, maybe not as much as having the disease, but still, raising awareness leads to plenty of naps. At least, it wasn’t the thirty-one days of May. Little did I know what was to come.
When I started writing about Parkinson’s Disease, my research led me to find all sorts of lovely peripheral things the disease will do to your body. For instance, it's wonderful to be constipated and bloated all the time. It's even more wonderful what you have to do to combat that. TMI? Yeah, I thought so, too. Sorry.
But, then I came across Melanoma, the deadliest of all skin cancers. Did you know having Parkinson’s ups your chances of getting Melanoma?
All the research I did on this came in handy on the morning I found a strange-looking mole on my upper back. I knew immediately it was Melanoma. I had it diagnosed more than a month before my former dermatologist did. Maybe that's why he’s a former.
The good news is the cancerous mole was easily removed before it did any damage to my body. The bad news is what it did to my psyche. For the last eight years, every new piece of dry skin sends me into a tizzy. I now take photos of everything on my body and send them to my dermatologist with the comment ”Is this anything?” It almost never is. Almost, because the two times I did think something was nothing actually led to visits to a Mohs surgeon to remove a squamous cell carcinoma.
So between my Melanoma and a couple of friends who tragically had deadly cases of the disease, I figured I better hit the world wide web and do some more research on the disease. Guess what I found? ANOTHER AWARENESS MONTH! And guess when this one is? MAY! Yep, Melanoma and Skin Cancer Awareness Month begins today! Thirty-one more days. And, in addition to this, there’s even a Melanoma awareness day. Melanoma Monday occurs on the first Monday of May. That means it’s (checking calendar)….TODAY!! If you see people dressed in the color black, that’s what those in this community do to help raise awareness. If you ask, we’ll probably lecture you about wearing sunscreen, staying out of tanning beds and why you need to constantly check your body for new moles. So, beware!
Hopefully, you realize that a lot of what you’ve read so far is me being somewhat facetious. These awareness months are critically important as far as raising money. In the last couple of months, there have been major medical breakthroughs in the fight against both Parkinson’s and Melanoma. It’s only a matter of time before both diseases either have a cure or are eradicated. That’s why we need to keep up the awareness and keep the money coming in.
So, goodbye to Parkinson’s Awareness and welcome to Melanoma Awareness. That’ll be it for me for 2023; although I just realized I have more issues with kidney stones than either of the above diseases. Do you think they have an awareness month? Oh man, I think I need to check the www thing again….hang on. OMG…did you know March is National Kidney Month. It’s going to be a long Spring in 2024.