Skin Cancer Awareness Month: Son hopes to raise awareness by sharing father’s battle with melanoma
May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month and News Center 7 spoke with a man who recently lost his father to the disease.
Adam Lewis’ father, Douglas Lewis, was being treated for melanoma at Kettering Health Main Campus. He said once he was diagnosed, it spread rapidly.
Lewis, a Tennessee resident originally from Dayton, looked up to his father and was lucky to have a great relationship with him, but his father’s life was cut short last month when he died after battling skin cancer at the age of 65.
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“Which in my mind isn’t that old,” Lewis told News Center 7′s Kayla McDermott.
He said he father did everything right.
“He initially noticed a spot on his foot that concerned him and went to a dermatologist and a specialist to have it tested, and it was determined that it was melanoma,” Lewis said
From there, the cancer took over. It moved from his foot to lymph nodes before moving to his spinal cord and the lower part of his brain. Chelsea Zastrow, a nurse practitioner at Kettering Health, said that tends to happen with melanoma patients.
“Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer and it’s the most serious because of the tendency to rapidly spread,” Zastrow said.
This tends to happen even more when people expose themselves to the sun or tanning beds.
“Over time our skin, the color of our skin will change. Burns will cause increase in freckles or moles,” Zastrow explained.
Douglas Lewis still developed the cancer without UV rays.
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“The original spot was on his foot, which you wouldn’t necessarily consider to be a spot that maybe is exposed to the sun, right? You had shoes or socks on and so for it to pop up there that really told us that this is this is a disease, that whether you’re in the sun or not, is really something to be mindful of,” Lewis said.
Lewis said his father was in “a lot” of pain in his final days.
“Knowing that he was in that much pain, we’re thankful that the Lord took him home,” Lewis said.
He said he’ll cherish his time with his father and his memory forever.
“I’m grateful for the 40-plus years that I had with him as a son,” Lewis said.
Lewis went on to say that he’s more aware of his own skin after losing his dad. Doctors recommend you get your skin checked at least once a year.
