Mary Ann was diagnosed with melanoma quite by accident in 1998, at age 40, when she went to the doctor for a routine removal of a hemorrhoid. She battled for 4 years and 10 months, undergoing every FDA-approved treatment, plus three clinical trials and five surgeries. Despite it all the disease spread to her lungs and eventually throughout her body.
She battled bravely every bit of the way and always tried to educate people who thought that skin cancer was no big deal.
She passed away on March 12, 2003, and to this day no doctor ever could pinpoint where the melanoma began, only that by the time it was picked up it was internal, which severely limited her chances of being able to beat it.
She leaves behind a devastated husband and two children (Samantha and Justin) who cannot understand how someone who appeared so healthy for much of the battle was just taken away so quickly at the end.
She was not simply a big part of our lives she was our life!
Cory Eisner, husband