Epilogue from Dad’s Girl by Judd Weirbach
I would be remiss if I did not emphasize how important it is for a person to not be hesitant about questioning their health care professional whether it be a general practice physician, oncologist, or surgeon. Remember, it is not their body that is being treated, it is not their life at risk, it is yours! If they make an error in treatment protocols or diagnosis it affects you, not them.
Medical procedural errors take place and incorrect diagnoses do occur. In fact it has been reported that more than 75,000 deaths occur annually in hospitals primarily because of incorrect diagnoses and/or care or treatments, surgical errors or prescribed pharmaceutical errors. I strongly urge you to remember this one fact: asking for a second or third opinion is not being unreasonable, it is being sensible! If you have any doubt or hesitancy about asking for a second or third opinion on a diagnosis or treatment protocol, you should fully understand that it literally could mean the difference between living and dying.
I will add one more suggestion for your consideration to further persuade you.
When most adults are considering something as comparatively insignificant as a home loan, they will take the time to seek out lenders with the lowest interest rates, the fewest points involved and the lowest closing costs. The majority of these purchasers do not accept the first offer provided to them, instead they shop around for additional rate and term quotes then they compare the offers and make an informed decision. If the same individuals are going to have a new home constructed they will likely verify the reputation of the builder with regulatory agencies such as contractor licensing agencies like The Better Business Bureau. The truth is many people will take the additional time to do this when financial issues are involved.
The question I ask you is why not ask for different offers (opinions) when medical life and death issues are possibly at risk?
This is not to say that most physicians are incompetent, but rather to suggest that many are truly dedicated specialists that spend countless late night hours researching specifics, and have received advanced, type-specific training and practical experience in narrow fields such as melanoma cancer and other rarer type cancers and other catastrophic diseases. The human body is a very complex marvel indeed. I doubt that a physician exists who is truly the best of the best encompassing all areas of diagnosing diseases, treatments, organs and other systems of the human body. The complexities are truly enormous.
The small town doctor of the early 1900s had very few diagnostic tools available to augment the reliable stethoscope, microscope and of course the thermometer. There were unknown diseases people died from then where the death was attributed to “old age” because the technology did not exist to discover the disease that ended their life. Today’s physicians carry a much larger discovery/diagnosis burden than predecessors due to the thousands of new diseases.
In my opinion, if your doctor is hesitant about you seeking another opinion, that should be the red flag signaling you to find a different doctor. I am convinced that most physicians would agree with this opinion, including my own doctor. The truth is many physicians will ask for a second or even third opinion diagnosis from medical colleagues when it is their own family member that is facing a catastrophic disease. Why wouldn’t you use the same logic?
The Tiffany Weirbach Melanoma Foundation and its website http://www.tiffanysmelanomafoundation.org continue to inform others of the extremely dangerous and aggressive characteristics of melanoma. We do not receive grant monies, federal or private, and rely solely on donations from individuals to support our endeavor. We are hopeful that corporations will one day be concerned enough about melanoma to consider Tiffany’s foundation as a worthwhile charity to donate funds to. No one on staff receives a paycheck, therefore all funds donated do the utmost for informing others about melanoma and assisting melanoma patients in need as funds permit. This mission challenge is one that I promised my daughter I would continue and is of the utmost importance due to the apparent lack of concern by many of the media outlets to report the dangers and risk factors of melanoma as they really are.
Little news about melanoma reaches the public. For example, if I were to ask you what the number one diagnosed cancer in women ages 20 to 29 years of age is you would probable indicate that breast or ovarian cancer would be the likely answer.
I have submitted this question to hundreds of people and not one has given the correct answer, which indicates to me that the media has done a very poor job of providing the public with adequate information concerning skin cancer. Even the statistics about skin cancer vary from one cancer, governmental or medical organization to another. The fact is that skin cancer is the most diagnosed cancer of all cancers with well in excess of one million cases discovered each year. Many individuals are not aware that skin is the largest organ of the human body therefore providing a very dangerous combination of lack of awareness of the disease and a lack of knowledge of what skin cancer can ultimately do.
Most people are genuinely surprised when informed that a person can die from skin cancer. They are unaware that melanoma starts out on the skin but then as it progresses it penetrates deeper into the tissue and over a period of time enters the lymph system and then becomes an internal cancer. Tumors then can be found on the liver, ovaries or brain as well as other internal organs when in its most advanced stages. Of the three types of skin cancer (basal cell, squamous cell and malignant melanoma) the melanoma cancer is without a question an extremely difficult cancer to treat when not detected in the earliest stages. When melanoma is at an advanced stage three and in the lymphatic tract the patient has only a 15-20% chance of surviving five years.
Treatment options for melanoma are very limited, unlike breast cancer, which has multiple treatment options available. Women are constantly encouraged in different media formats to receive an annual mammogram in order to detect breast cancer in its earliest stages. However the same effort of encouragement from the media is not true for melanoma. For example, when was the last time you were encouraged by the media to have an examination for skin cancer?
When was the last time you were asked to disrobe by your physician for a “head to toe” check-up for skin cancer? If you are like most people, you probably have never received a complete examination for skin cancer, hence the problem of not being able to detect the cancer early on.
Basal and squamous cell cancer can usually be removed with a very minor surgical procedure. Melanoma is not as easy to deal with unless it is detected very early on.
In the many discussions I have had with advanced stage melanoma patients, one fact was clearly obvious, they felt normal until the affected area became sore or “puffy” or the mole had completely changed color or size. By that time when they became concerned and went to their dermatologist or family physician the melanoma was already at an advanced stage making if far more difficult to treat successfully.
What we have to recognize is that cancer is a silent killer; you do not wake up one day and feel like you have cancer. Your wife or husband will not look at you across the breakfast table and tell you that you have cancer. This is why public awareness and early detection is of the utmost importance. The media can help by providing the public with more information about skin cancer and therefore save lives in the process. If you doubt what I am saying you only have to look at what has been accomplished with the reduction in percentage of incident reported AIDS and breast cancer in America over the last 20 years with public awareness information from the media.
I have been leading up to this point: I have not forgotten about the first question I asked you pertaining to the women ages 20-29 and the answer is melanoma, the most lethal form of skin cancer! Additional statistics indicate that in women age’s 30-35 melanoma is the second most diagnosed cancer in their age group. You might ask, what do these statistics indicate? I will suggest to you that these age groups are indicative of the fact that women spend a significant amount of time outdoors. Women want to have a well tanned body which means they are either baking out in the sun around the swimming pool or are making the numerous trips to the local tanning salon trying to obtain the perfect tan as quickly as possible. These types of activities, of course are increasing their risk factor for skin cancer.
My daughter was never seeking a tanned look. She did not lie out in the sun or visit tanning salons and yet she was diagnosed with melanoma when a birthmark changed and became raised.
There are other examples of unusual cases of melanoma such as in the inside of the eye and between the toes, but the reality is the more exposure to the sun’s damaging rays the more likely it is for a person to be diagnosed with skin cancer. Most of the reporting groups agree that a person has a 1 in 75 chance of being diagnosed with skin cancer in their lifetime but if you received a few serious sunburns in your youth (with serious blistering}, you can change those odds to 1 in 37.
I suggest using sunscreen SPF 30 or higher when spending time in the sun and follow your doctor’s guidelines for safer sun exposure. Regarding the use of tanning beds, it is risky because you are receiving concentrated amounts of UV rays and that is why almost all tanning salons require your signature on a release form, and the majority of physicians will simply say DON’T USE TANNING LAMPS OR DEVICES. In a report from the Center for Disease Control they state that the UV rays from artificial light sources such as tanning lamps or sun lamps sources are just as dangerous as those from the direct sun.
The American Academy of Dermatology provides a website www.aad.org that offers excellent information and statistics about melanoma and other forms of skin cancer. A few of the statistics reported are that nearly 75% of skin cancer deaths will be from melanoma, and it is estimated that 105,750 new cases of melanoma will be reported and of those 59,580 will be invasive with about 7,770 people dying from the disease this year. There are other agencies that estimate that up to 12,000 will die from melanoma.
The American Cancer Society website www.cancer.org also provides information about melanoma and other cancers. There now are numerous associations, foundations and medical research sources for information about melanoma. The internet has now enabled people to obtain this information with a few clicks of the mouse. However, it was not that easy eight years ago when my daughter was diagnosed with melanoma. Of course the obvious fact is that if the public is not aware of what and how dangerous melanoma skin cancer is then they will not safeguard themselves and their young children from the dangers and lifetime risk factors resulting from excessive sun exposure.
Educating the public is the key element of protecting families against the ravages of skin cancer, and this book is one way I hope to accomplish just that. A percentage of the profits from this book will be deposited to the Tiffany Weirbach “sportbikegirl” Melanoma Foundation banking account to help in continuing our educational battle against melanoma.
www.tiffanysmelanomafoundation.org ~ Helping and informing others
www.sportbikegirl.com ~ The original “Sportbikegirl”
www.dadsgirl.org ~ The book website