Cancer scare became her cause Posted Wednesday, April 27, 2005 by arjuna


Body Language | Cancer scare became her cause

By Art Carey
Inquirer Columnist

On that fateful day 16 years ago, Catherine Poole was five months' pregnant. She was lying on the couch, battling the flu, when she noticed something peculiar on the back of her right leg, just above the ankle.

She had always had a birthmark there, light brown and the size of a quarter. Now, it was raised and peppered with ugly black dots.

She knew a change like that was significant. The next day, she visited a dermatologist, who became visibly alarmed. A surgeon removed the growth immediately.

The pathology report: melanoma.

Poole had never heard the word before. She was shocked to discover she had a malignant form of skin cancer that, in its advanced stages, almost always kills, sometimes within months.

She worried whether the cancer would affect the child in her womb, whether she'd be alive to celebrate the baby's first birthday.

To eradicate cancerous cells in nearby tissue, a chunk of flesh the size of a golfball was cut out. A slice of skin was planed from her hip and grafted over the cavity in her leg. She spent the rest of her pregnancy on crutches, terrified the cancer would return.

"It was like sitting on a time bomb," she says. "I was told that if it's going to recur, it's likely to happen in the first two or three years."

Needless to say, the cancer didn't recur and Poole survived. From that experience came a friendship, a book, a vocation and a passion.

In those days, information about melanoma was scarce. Poole, a freelance writer and "congenital researcher," began digging. A mother lode was DuPont Guerry IV, director of the melanoma program at the University of Pennsylvania.

With him, she collaborated on a book that answered the questions Poole had when the cancer was diagnosed back in 1989, and then some. The second edition of Melanoma: Prevention, Detection, and Treatment (Yale University Press, $16.95) was just published. It is accessible, direct and practical.

When the first edition came out in 1998, Poole says, she began hearing from folks battling the disease. They were seeking further information, succor, guidance. She shared what she knew and offered a compassionate ear.

The demand for help inspired Poole to create the Melanoma International Foundation. She launched it in August 2003 with a credit card. It is based in her house in Glenmoore, Chester County. The staff numbers exactly one: Poole.

"I'm on call 24/7," she says. "If the phone rings, I pick it up."

The foundation's mission is education, prevention, early detection, and treatment research. It is supported by private contributions, many of which have come from grateful families and friends of melanoma victims aided by Poole in the last months of their lives.

Melanoma kills someone every hour, or about 7,800 people a year, often in the prime of life. (It's the most common cancer in women 25 to 29.) Our sun-worshiping ways, the popularity of tanning salons, and the Earth's thinning atmosphere (less ozone to block harmful UV rays) have helped boost melanoma rates. Its incidence is rising faster than any other cancer (2,000 percent since 1930).

How she developed melanoma is no mystery, says Poole, 52. A fair-skinned blonde, she spent her early years outside as a competitive swimmer in Arizona, where the sun is intense. One summer, when she was teaching horseback riding in Virginia, she was in the sun so much she actually tanned. In high school, she used a tanning lamp on her legs.

We are so enamored of a "healthy tan" (an unacknowledged oxymoron) that trying to dissuade us from spending time in the sun is futile, Poole believes. So recently, she has shifted her emphasis from prevention to early detection.

When out and about, she watches for telltale moles. And she isn't shy about urging people to consult a dermatologist pronto. She did it to a woman in her yoga class, to an airline clerk as she was about to fly out of town. When she sat behind George H.W. Bush at a conference, she noticed a lesion on his jaw. She encouraged him to have it checked. (He did; it was benign.)

The bad news about melanoma is that it's aggressive. The good news is that it's curable - if caught early. Poole's suggestion: With each change of season, examine your body for unusual moles and lesions.

She's no fan of sun-blocking lotions (most people apply too little, too late). Instead, she recommends staying in the shade and protecting your head and neck (where melanoma is especially lethal) with a full-brimmed hat, your body with solar-safe, tightly woven clothing. Her dream is to make using a parasol fashionable again.

"Your skin is not just a cosmetic shell," Poole says. "Your skin is an organ that protects all the other organs inside your body.

"Tanning is your skin's way of saying it's getting hit by radiation. The sun's damage is much deeper than mere sunburn. It's systemic; it affects the whole body. It's not only frying, aging and wrinkling your skin. It's bombarding your cells and messing with your immune system and DNA."