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Courtney Ashley - September 2011

My beautiful daughter, Courtney, is a sweet, fun-loving, intelligent, and very brave young lady. She makes me laugh and smile every day. She does very well in school, and is hoping to get a scholarship to Western Kentucky in Bowling Green. I can say she is not only my daughter, but is my very best friend.

Courtney was was diagnosed at 16 years old with malignant melanoma skin cancer, Stage IIC on May 12, 2011. Her tumor was 7 mm, ulcerated, invasive and had a high mitotic rate of 20.

Courtney had a mole on her left forearm since she was a little girl and at the beginning of 2011, it started growing, bleeding and itching. I had no idea what melanoma was or even that there was a deadly skin cancer, so I thought it was growing because she was picking at it. I kept telling her it would stop growing if she just stopped touching and picking. It didn't, and it only grew bigger and bled more.

In April 2011, I made an appointment to have the mole removed as she was going to prom the 2nd week of May, as it continued to bleed. On May 6, 2011 the dermatologist shaved the mole and sent it for a biopsy. He said he has never seen anything like it as it did not have any pigment. On May 12, 2011, the dermatologist called and said the results came back as malignant melanoma. We were stunned to say the least.

They immediately sent her for PET scans, CT scans an a MRI of her brain and liver, and an ultrasound of her liver as they thought it had spread, but thank goodness it did not. She was referred to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, and we arrived there on May 23, 2011. Courtney had to do all of the scans again to verify that she did have melanoma, and she did.

After all of the testing was complete, she had wide excision surgery to remove the tumor and margins, along with a lymph node dissection. We were blessed again as the cancer did not spread to her lymph nodes.

On June 15, 2011, she began her 4 weeks of high dose interferon treatment. On her 2nd week of treatment, she began having problems with her liver, so they did not do treatment for that week.

After spending 7 weeks at St. Jude, Courtney and I are home, and she continues a once a week peginterferon shot. She will take this for 48 weeks. She is having some side effects with this drug... nausea, fatigue and memory problems, but she is maintaining a positive attitude. She is very confident that she will beat this horrible disease. She will be complete her peginterferon treatment in June 2012, and we hope and pray she will remain cancer free. She continues to go to St. Jude for monthly check-ups and, again, every month we have been blessed with wonderful news that the cancer has not spread and she has not had any no secondary tumors.

I thank the Lord every day for watching over my daughter, and pray that the cancer will not spread. I will be by my daughter's side until the day I die. She will have to fight this the rest of her life, and we will do it together!

Breanne Owens - January 2011

Breanne Owens is a 5-year survivor of childhood melanoma. She was diagnosed at the age of six after her mother discovered what resembled a wart on Breanne's right leg that wouldn't heal. Soon after, Breanne came to MD Anderson Children's Cancer Hospital where she had surgery to remove the melanoma and received interferon chemotherapy. Now, Breanne only comes back to the Children's Cancer Hospital for checkups every four to six months with her pediatric oncologist.

Other than that, the healthy sixth-grader from Houston has gone back to life as usual, playing with make-up, keeping up with the latest trends and taking lots of photos with her friends. She openly shares her story with others to teach them the importance of sun safety.

Tim - June 2010

I had a lesion on my scalp that I thought was a sabaceous cyst in January 2010. It would bleed and was non-pigmented. My dermatologist believed it was basal cell. The biopsy came back as 2C melanoma and my world collapsed.

My surgery was the easiest part of my treatment - you can barely see a scar. There was no lymph node involvement. I sought advice from UC-San Francisco and Dr. O'day in LA. Everyone advised me to have the interferon treatment, which consisted of IV infusion 5 days a week for a month. It was a tough month with fatigue and nausea, but with my wife's support I made it. It took about 3 weeks for my stamina to return and not to have side effects.

The next step in treatment was more interferon, but a lighter dose. I did have some hand tremors from the month treatment (I'm a dentist), so it was decided not to rx the interferon.

I have now started another immunotherapy drug called Leukine which I inject sub-cutaneously for 14 days and off 14 days - each for one year. The effects are very mild and only amounted to mild headaches. I have 11 months remaining of this treatment.

Supposedly, all this treatment will cut down my chances of recurrence from 50% to 20%. But no one can really quantify it.

I don't dwell on the prospects of my cancer returning. I hope for the best -- that's all one can do.

Kate Mathews - May 2009

My name is Kate Mathews. I am 20 years old. I am a senior in college and am an elementary education major. I found a suspicious mole on my lower right thigh, slightly above my knee. The spot was small, but caught my attention because it was half shaded in and half un-shaded. I scheduled a routine check up with my dermatologist and pointed out the mole. My doctor agreed that it did look funny and decided to do a biopsy. I received a phone call about a week later from my doctor. The biopsy had shown that the mole was cancer. I made an appointment to meet with the cancer specialist. She informed me that my cancer was an early stage two melanoma. Thankfully, it was caught early, and my doctor and I decided that surgery was the best treatment option. I had the surgery a few days later. I ended up with a 4-inch incision and 27 stitches. Thankfully, the post-surgery biopsy came back clear of cancer!

Since the diagnosis, I have taken many precautions to protect my skin from the sun. I wear sunscreen every day and hats during outside activities. I see my doctor every three months. I have had multiple biopsies since the initial cancer diagnosis, but fortunately, all have come back clear. I have become an advocate for proper sun protection!