Health Watch: Spotting melanoma

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – It’s summertime, and that means many of us are spending a lot of time out in the sun. But Green Bay’s Christi Ahmann has a warning.

“You feel like you’re falling down a deep well and you don’t know where the bottom is. How bad is this going to be?” Ahmann said.

That was the feeling for Ahmann when she was diagnosed with stage three melanoma last year.

Ahmann was no stranger to melanoma. She had a cancerous mole removed from her thigh just months before. But a new mole was in a more worrisome spot.

“I had had this spot on my forehead and my hairdresser said, ‘You know, that seems like it’s maybe changed some. Next time you go in, have that looked at.’ So, I went in, and they did a biopsy, and that too came back as melanoma,” Ahmann recalled.

Prior to this, Ahmann was no stranger to unprotected time in the sun either.

“I just thought, ‘Oh, it’s not going to be me.’ I was a child of the late 60s and early 70s, did the baby oil, laying out in the sun and getting a tan,” Ahmann said.

Darkening or changes in the shape of a mole are a tell-tale sign of melanoma.

After a plastic surgeon removed the mole, cancer was also discovered in Ahmann’s lymph node.

Because of this, she was referred to Aurora BayCare Medical Center oncologist, Dr. Stephanie LaBomascus.

“In this case, (Ahmann) had node-positive disease so we were looking at like a stage-three melanoma,” said Dr. LaBomascus.

“In this setting, we prefer to do an extra year of immunotherapy to try to reduce the risk that there could be any melanoma cells left behind,” she said. “This works to improve the body’s immune surveillance for these cells. Not every cancer can be treated by immunotherapy but that type of drug has really changed the game for melanoma patients,” Dr. LaBomascus added.

Ahmann comes to Aurora BayCare every six weeks for her immunotherapy infusions. They’re doing their job and she’s tolerating treatment well.

Melanoma is preventable, and Ahmann wishes she listened to the advice when she was younger and wore sunscreen or avoided tanning beds.

But if she can save someone else from this experience, she hopes her message will.

“That’s the thing, don’t think it can’t happen to you, and don’t think because you haven’t had a sunburn in the last ten years; That damage sits there, and it just waits for you,” said Ahmann. “But if there’s just one person who’s looking at a lesion on their body and going, ‘Gee, that’s gotten a little darker, that’s gotten a little more irregular,’ or maybe it’s growing quickly, pick up the phone and call now,” said Ahmann.

If you have any questions regarding Aurora BayCare’s dermatology treatments, visit their website or call 920-288-5868.

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