To Whom It May Concern:

I am a 75 year old woman who grew up in Florida, basking in the wonderful sunshine for the first 18 years of my life, swimming on the high-school team, and loving the ocean and the beach. We never heard of “sunscreen”.

Now I live in Colorado, but ten years ago I bought a condo in Florida on the East Coast and once again began basking in the sunshine, and “living” on the beach and in the ocean, again without “sunscreen” (my favorite lotion was the Hawaiian darkening oil). But now I have numerous skin cancers, so what am I doing about them?

I am allowing Dr. Swinehart to remove them by Mohs treatment.

I have had four people that I know personally, die from skin cancer. It is very sad to hear the story of the 31 year old woman who left a wonderful caring husband, and five young children. It is very sad to see a young man that swam on the high school team with me, die and leave his wife and grandchildren at 63 years old. It is very sad to see the young sales lady at my favorite boutique in the little town in Florida, die leaving her husband, never having children yet. It is very sad to hear of the 40 something year old man who merely thought he had back trouble, die leaving his wife and three children. These are each people whose last two years of life or less were filled with horrible pain, secondary illnesses caused by chemotherapy and radiation, and a life that was hopeless and horrible. These four cases that I am personally connected to died because they were either misdiagnosed or because they waited too long to do anything about their skin cancer.

So why ignore it or wait. If you know that you have a skin cancer, and need the Mohs treatment, get it done as soon as possible. I have had five done, and am expecting as I write this letter to have another one done. There really is nothing to it; some local anesthetic, pleasant music, a few stitches, a bandaid, and later a stitch removal. With the first two, the scars have completely disappeared, and the next three are fading as time passes.

Why wait? You have nothing to loose, but your life!