Cancer victim's message for all: Melanoma can strike anywhere Posted Saturday, October 2, 2004 by arjuna
The Detroit News
September 29, 2094

When you’re in your teens or 20s, you think you’re immortal. Cancer is something that happens to older people.

Angela Guenther was no different.

“No one believes this will ever happen to them, that they’re invincible. I thought that too,” she said when I first wrote about her in June.

But the 23-year-old Central Michigan University student learned it could happen to her. A large black mole with uneven edges her mother spotted on Angela’s back was diagnosed as melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer.

This year, more than 55,000 Americans will be diagnosed with the disease.

Angela’s life turned into surgeries, radiation treatments and long weeks in the hospital. Her wedding was planned for June 2003. Just a week before the ceremony, she was able to leave the hospital.

“It was so wonderful to be able to get her to that point,” says her mother, Mary Jo Sights of Lake Orion. “It meant so much to her. But it was so scary as to where it was going to go from there.”

Angela wanted more than just a wedding. She wanted to buy a house and have a baby.

But melanoma was winning. The tumors were spreading across her body and into her brain.

Angela wasn’t willing to give up. She wanted to be the matron of honor at her sister’s wedding in August. Somehow, she made it. It was a beautiful day.

“Even though Angela was extremely ill and was really having a hard time, she was her matron of honor, and she was there,” says family friend Roz Mermell. “She made it.”

But this past week, beautiful Angela lost her fight.

Among her last e-mails was this one: “Remember how important life is and to live every day to the fullest, because you never know how long you are going to be here. I would love to stay alive and be with my husband and kids and live forever. So I am praying to just keep fighting and never giving up hope.”

Her mother e-mailed me, as well, and asked that I share her message:

“When people think of angels, I want them to remember Angela. ... People need to know that melanoma is a devastating disease without a cure. ... They need to know that sun block expires and to check the dates. They need to know that sunshine is best enjoyed in your heart, not on your body. Wear hats and sun block and protection, all the time, daily. ... Look carefully at moles or odd colorations on the skin and get immediately to a qualified dermatologist for evaluation. Don’t wait. Melanoma doesn’t.”

Angela and her mother spent these last months reminding people of the dangers of the sun.

“Everybody says it’s so important to be so tan,” her mother says. “It’s not. It’s important to live.”
Though Angela is gone, her family is left with thousands of dollars in medical bills they can’t afford.