The Scary (And Personal) Truth About Tanning Salons

 After reading a really great article in Women’s Health magazine about tanning beds and skin cancer, it inspired me come forward with my own personal story to speak up and speak out against indoor tanning.  I wouldn’t call myself an abuser of tanning beds in my past – I used them here and there to get a nice even tan for a wedding, or for a Saturday night out on the town.  Even while living down in Florida, where the sun was abundant, I would still hit the tanning salon a few times a week to get a deeper, richer tan than the sun could provide.  Even after having an abnormal mole removed from my back in the summer of 2010, I still went back to tanning beds because let’s face it – everyone looks (and feels) better with a tan.  In November of 2012, during a routine skin exam at my dermatologist, they found a mole that looked suspect.  They took a biopsy, no big deal, I thought, I’ve had that before. 

Less than a week later, I received an urgent call from my doctor regarding my biopsy: “You have melanoma – your mole is skin cancer.” After taking in all the details and setting an appointment to have it removed 6 days later, I rushed out of work and just sat in my car for a minute to let it all sink in. Me? 28 years old – cancer? And in that moment in my life, I wish I had never stepped foot in a tanning salon in the first place.  But what’s done was done. 

I went in the Monday following Thanksgiving to have the surgery on my lower right back.  The worst part of the surgery are the shots of numbing agent – at least 12 of them in and around the spot on my back - and of course the feeling of your skin being tugged together by a piece of thread – that’s always a lovely feeling.  When they were all done, I had them snap a picture of the final product before they bandaged me up and sent me on my way:

 The mole itself was not huge – a bit larger than the eraser on a pencil - but they removed an area the size of a half dollar in diameter and about a half an inch deep into my skin leaving me with a 4-5 inch wound; the goal of the surgery is to not only remove the melanoma but also the surrounding areas to ensure they have captured every little spec of the malignant area.  I went home that night feeling defeated and of course once the numbing agent wore off, in extreme pain.  I could barely sit on the couch or a chair without there being sharp pain in my back.  In that moment I thought – what have I done to myself.  How could I do this to my own body? I’m not even 30 yet and I’ve had cancer – what is the matter with me!

At that point, the healing process starts and along with that comes the acceptance phase and realizing there is nothing you can do now but make better choices and by all means – take care of yourself.  The physical healing process was a rough one; it really took a full 2 weeks before I started feeling like the wound was healing and to this day I still have some pain at the site.  At my 2 week appointment to have the stitches removed and check on the area, my doctor recommended that I go see Dr. Pecora, a friend of his at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center.  He is an internationally recognized cancer expert and while they believe they got everything out, they want to take extra precautions to ensure that it hadn’t spread to my lymph nodes, or worse, my organs.  Your life at 28 years old really slaps you in the face when you are making an appointment with a cancer specialist because let’s face it, that’s the last doctor I thought I would be visiting at this point in my life.  But it was the right thing to do, better to be safe than sorry. 

Sitting in the waiting room at the cancer center was a doozy.  There were so many people around me that were really suffering, in so much worse shape than me, and I couldn’t help but have sympathy for them, and their loved ones, and a small part for me.  Believe it or not, I actually started to feel gratitude in that moment that mine was only a little skin cancer.  Dr. Pecora checked me out and after reviewing my information, he thinks that I will be ok, that we caught it early enough that the cancer had not traveled deep into my skin cells to reach the blood stream that goes to my lymph nodes (mine was .14 mm deep, they believe the melanoma gets into the blood stream around 1 mm).  I have one more appointment with him in April at which point he will decide whether I need to continue to see him for 3 years or if I’m in the clear. 

So, you may ask, why am I coming forward with this very personal happening in my life? My hope is that anyone reading this that currently goes tanning will stop and make a conscience effort to take their health seriously because it is not a joke.  When we are young we think, “that won’t happen to me” or “they are just trying to scare me.”  Well, the truth is, it can happen to you and take it from someone who’s been through it – it is scary. Very scary.  I never thought that at 28 years young I would be mumbling the words to my loved ones that “I have cancer” and I sincerely hope I never have to mutter those words again.  For now, I have a 4 inch scar on my back as an everyday reminder of this horrific experience and I will be staying away from anything that can harm my skin further because quite frankly, there is so much more left in life that I want to see, hear, taste, touch and experience.  I’m simply not done living yet. 

For anyone that is going tanning because they think that’s the only way to get some color on your skin, there are many safer alternatives that help you achieve a natural, sun-kissed glow without all the damaging effects! I was recently turned onto Dr. Gross Self-Tanning towels for both body and face by my best friend Lia who gave them to me as a gift for Christmas.  They apply nice, even color, and the face pads are the best I’ve found that don’t clog your pores like most facial tanning lotions do.  I bought a box of 50 on Amazon for $36 and it will last me the whole year (and it came with 5 free facial peels!). 

 Lastly, below is the article from Women’s Health January/February issue that inspired me to come forth with my own recount (it may be hard to read in the below form so if you want the PDFed version, let me know and I can send it to you).  If I can get one person who reads this to stop going to tanning beds for the rest of their lives then I’ll consider my efforts successful but I sincerely hope that anyone reading this really thinks twice before stepping into one of those death traps again.  There’s so much more to life than being tan.