What do you wear for Melanoma Monday?

"Don't forget to put sunscreen on him."

It's the first day of May. The awareness months of April are over and the one for May begin. Goodbye to Parkinson's, Autism and Stress Awareness. Hello to Melanoma and Zombie Awareness. The difference is while Zombies will scare you, Melanoma will kill you.

Because it's the first Monday of May,  it's also Melanoma Monday. Two things I want to highlight about this day. a. Wear black to raise awareness. b. Wear sunscreen to save your life.

The quote at the top is from a woman I was sitting next to on the bus yesterday. I have no idea who she is but she was talking on the phone when those words came out of her mouth. I told her I was writing about skin cancer and sunscreen and she said she was talking to her husband. He's in North Carolina with their son, who's playing in a soccer game. Good to know they take the sun seriously. So many people don't.

This is a picture of my youngest daughter and me. It's the summer of 1993 and we're at the beach in Northern California. Family vacation. Neither of us were wearing any sunscreen. You can see her face and legs are already red. By the time this day was over she was fried. Kim was so sunburned that we had to put towels over the windows in the back seat to keep the sun off of her while we were driving.

I'm sure this was the first time she was ever sunburned. When you get sunburned for the first time, you increase your chances of getting Melanoma later in life by 50%. At the time of this picture, she was just one year old. We messed up her molecular makeup early.

She has learned well. Whenever we talk about this day/photo, she says when she has children, she'll make sure they are slathered with sunscreen when they go outside.

A couple of weeks ago, a childhood friend went on vacation to Florida. She posted photos of the beach on her Facebook site. My one word comment was "Sunscreen." Her response was "You better believe it." PHEW!! My friend is light skinned with freckles. When we were growing up we thought the sun was good thing. We didn't use sunscreen. Occasionally we used sun tan lotion. Even worse was putting on baby oil while we sat in the sun. We tried to get our bodies bronzed. We thought it was a good look. We didn't know it could be deadly.

So on Melanoma Monday, my word of the day is sunscreen. It's such a simple thing. If you're going outside, put some on. It's the easiest way to protect yourself from skin cancer. It's the easiest way to potentially save your life.

This is the third Melanoma Monday post I've written. Here's the first. Here's the second. I have a few other posts planned for Melanoma Awareness Month. They include Dermatologists, Melanoma messing with your head as well as your body and this Wednesday there's a piece about children, schools and sunscreen. It's important information.

Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.