Melanoma Metastisizes 18 Years After Surgery
- Jo Watson, 59, was a vegetarian marathon runner who regularly went to the gym and did not smoke, drink or eat red meat. She was diagnosed with melanoma in 2003 but was declared cancer-free in 2008
- Her daughter thinks her mom’s love of sun and use of cooking oil to tan played a role in her diagnosis, speaking just months after Jo’s cancer spread and she lost her battle with the disease
- Adults should check their skin for signs of melanoma an have all abnormal moles examined by a doctor
Jo Watson, 59, was the picture of health, according to her daughter Emma.
Read MoreEmma suggests that her mother’s love of the sun was to blame for her skin cancer battle.
“My mom used to be a sun-worshipper. There was not the same awareness back then and she used to put cooking oil on her skin to go out in the sun!” explained Emma. “She was sun obsessed and used to travel around Europe in a VW camper van and even lived in France for a year.”
That all ended 18 years ago when Jo noticed a mole on her body had started to bleed, prompting her to have it examined by a medical professional.
Jo learned soon after that she had melanoma.
The mole was removed, and five years later she was declared cancer-free, according to her daughter.
Everything was going well until last year when Jo started to retain fluids in her stomach which required draining and caused her pain.
An initial test for ovarian cancer came back negative, and that is when Jo discovered that her melanoma had spread to the lining of her abdomen.
It is a rare occurrence, but Jo soldiered through and was responding well to the BRAF treatment.
BRAF is the gene that encodes the protein B-Raf, which signals cell growth in the human body. A mutation of the gene is often found in the tumors of individuals whose melanoma has metastasized, and a targeted therapy in which patients take a pill once daily to shrink those tumors has proven effective for a period of time.
Her tumors began to shrink until things took a sudden turn in December, and a scan showed that cancer had spread around her abdomen.
She passed away one month later, but not before getting to see her daughter Emma follow in her footsteps by getting a nursing degree.
"When I was young I gave my mum a lot of grief. She used to say I would never get anywhere in my life,” explains Emma. "I wanted to prove to her I could make something of myself.”
Screening for Skin Cancer
Doing regular self-checks on your skin is important to find skin cancer early. If you're high-risk, it’s especially vital. Dr. Cecilia Larocca, a dermatologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, recommends looking at your skin once a month for anything suspiciousand using the acronym ABCDE as a checklist:
Asymmetrical moles: if you drew a line straight down the center of the mole, would the sides match?
Borders: irregular, jagged, not smooth; can also stand for bleeding
Colors: multiple distinct colors in the mole
Diameter: larger than 6mm, about the size of a pencil head eraser
Evolution: This may be the most important, anything that is changing over time such as gaining color, losing color, painful, itching, hurting, changing shape, etc…
What Causes Melanoma?
Ninety percent of melanomas are caused by ultraviolet radiation from the sun. That means you’re at risk if you spent excessive amounts of time in the suneven as a child. If you ever got scalding sunburns, or were a fan of tanning salons, it’s important to get your skin checked out.
“Melanomas are the deadliest type of skin cancer because they have a tendency to spread to other parts of the body,” explains Dr. Anna Pavlick, an oncologist at NYU Langone Health.
Melanoma can develop from an existing mole or it can appear as a dark or pink growth on the skinand it can appear in places that were never exposed to the sun.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
