Hello everybody with summer fast approaching here is your regular reminder that:
Everyone needs to wear sunscreen
SPF 50 is pretty much the best protection you can get, an SPF higher than that will have the same effect
Melanin does not protect you from skin cancer
Tanning is caused by exposure to ultraviolet radiation
Spending the majority of your life receiving regular large doses of UV radiation without any skin protection is a good way to get skin cancer
Don’t use tanning beds, and don’t go sun tanning
Wear your fucking sunscreen
Okay, people are clowning in the replies, so let’s try this again:
Sunburn is an uncomfortable short term problem caused by being out in the sun for too long without sunscreen. Some people are more susceptible to it than others. Melanin does protect you from sunburn, so people with dark skin are less likely to get burned, but also sometimes people just have a natural resistance to sunburn (or lack of resistance) - I’m white as hell, and literally the only time in my life I’ve gotten a sunburn was when I spent a whole day outside in a swimsuit without putting on sunscreen when I was a kid, and all I got was a minor burn across my shoulders. Never experienced that whole ‘peeling’ thing y’all are talking about, sounds super gross and uncomfortable tho. Rip to all the rest of you but i’m different.
Skin cancer is fucking cancer. It has nothing to do with sunburn, apart from both being caused by a lot of unprotected sun exposure. If you have skin, you are at risk of getting skin cancer. I have little to no risk of getting sunburn, but I still wear sunscreen, because I am protecting myself from fucking skin cancer.
If someone is basically immune to sunburn, then that’s awesome, but we still need to use just as much sunscreen as everyone else. Because we can still get skin cancer. Immunity to sunburn is not a sign that you can go easy on the sunscreen. And honestly, if you’ve got dark skin, you should probably be extra paranoid about applying sunscreen, because the majority of information on recognizing skin cancer is meant specifically for recognizing it on white skin. If you’re black/brown, it will probably take you longer to be diagnosed if you get skin cancer. And cancer is one of those things that you want diagnosed and treated very quickly, so you should be extra motivated to not get skin cancer in the first place.
Everyone needs to wear sunscreen. Wear your fucking sun screen.
Everyone send your love, prayers, and best wishes to Keith, I can’t imagine how hard this must be for him. He’s uplifted so many of us, and I hope we can return the favour and show him so much support ❤❤❤
Bluebell had a mass removed from her leg today. It was relatively big and undefined, which means it can’t be 100% removed. They sent it off for testing and we’ll know next week if it’s malignant or not.
Vet said it’s likely a tumor, but they can’t rule out trauma. It’s not lymphoma or a swollen lymph node, and that it is in the subdermal tissue. Right now all we can do is feel around her for recurrence and if it comes back aggressively then some options are seeing an oncologist in Nashville or amupation of the leg
“Wouldn’t all those rays also raise rates of skin cancer? Yes, but skin cancer kills surprisingly few people: less than 3 per 100,000 in the U.S. each year. For every person who dies of skin cancer, more than 100 die from cardiovascular diseases.
People don’t realize this because several different diseases are lumped together under the term “skin cancer.” The most common by far are basal-cell carcinomas and squamous-cell carcinomas, which are almost never fatal. In fact, says Weller, “When I diagnose a basal-cell skin cancer in a patient, the first thing I say is congratulations, because you’re walking out of my office with a longer life expectancy than when you walked in.” That’s probably because people who get carcinomas, which are strongly linked to sun exposure, tend to be healthy types that are outside getting plenty of exercise and sunlight.
Melanoma, the deadly type of skin cancer, is much rarer, accounting for only 1 to 3 percent of new skin cancers. And perplexingly, outdoor workers have half the melanoma rate of indoor workers. Tanned people have lower rates in general. “The risk factor for melanoma appears to be intermittent sunshine and sunburn, especially when you’re young,” says Weller. “But there’s evidence that long-term sun exposure associates with less melanoma.”
These are pretty radical words in the established dermatological community. “We do know that melanoma is deadly,” says Yale’s David Leffell, one of the leading dermatologists in the country, “and we know that the vast majority of cases are due to sun exposure. So certainly people need to be cautious.”
Still, Weller kept finding evidence that didn’t fit the official story. Some of the best came from Pelle Lindqvist, a senior research fellow in obstetrics and gynecology at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, home of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Lindqvist tracked the sunbathing habits of nearly 30,000 women in Sweden over 20 years. Originally, he was studying blood clots, which he found occurred less frequently in women who spent more time in the sun—and less frequently during the summer. Lindqvist looked at diabetes next. Sure enough, the sun worshippers had much lower rates. Melanoma? True, the sun worshippers had a higher incidence of it—but they were eight times less likely to die from it.
So Lindqvist decided to look at overall mortality rates, and the results were shocking. Over the 20 years of the study, sun avoiders were twice as likely to die as sun worshippers.
There are not many daily lifestyle choices that double your risk of dying. In a 2016 study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, Lindqvist’s team put it in perspective: “Avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor of a similar magnitude as smoking, in terms of life expectancy.””
In 1975, Dr. Vera Peters stood fast in front of 400 medical professionals and painstakingly proved them wrong.
This talk, in which she argued that breast cancer should be treated with removing merely the cancerous area and treating with radiation (instead of the borderline mutilation that was the standard treatment of the day), was not received well. Despite the overwhelming amount of evidence Peters presented — she had meticulously conducted a study of over 8,000 cases by hand — her findings were largely dismissed, and advocates of her “lumpectomy” methodology labeled incompetent. Her daughter, Dr. Jenny Ingram, recalls of the event, “there was just a dead silence at the end of this. I don’t think anyone could believe it, they were just shocked (by the data).”
History, of course, has borne out that she was correct, and her techniques are now the basis of modern-day breast cancer treatments.
This event was the second act to an already-remarkable life. In earlier years, her work on Hodgkin’s disease had brought it down from a death sentence to a treatable disease. Unfortunately, according to her contemporary Dr. Charles Hayter, the international medical community did not appreciate her spot in the limelight, and more or less shunned her, saying “go back to Toronto and do your women’s work.”
So she did. And improved the lot of a great many breast cancer survivors in the process.
She was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 1975, raised to Officer in 1977, and was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2010. In January of 2015, the aforementioned Dr. Hayter wrote and put on a play about her, entitled Radical, in Toronto. It opened to goodreviews.
It has come to my attention that acclaimed voice actor Billy Kametz has passed away after his battle with stage 4 colon cancer. Kametz was only 35 at the time of his passing. He played such beloved characters as Josuke Higashikata in Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure, Osomatsu Matsuno in Osomatsu-san, Ferdinand in Three Houses and so many more.
I met him a few years ago at a local convention and he was one of the nicest guys around. Signed a poster of mine and said he hoped to see me again someday. It’s honestly shocking that he was gone so quickly.
I hope his family and friends can find closure as we mourn the death of someone who changed so many of our lives
Hey guys. You might remember I told you about my aunt who had cancer. Well, she passed away last night. I know I’ve been MIA for a while now, but this means I’ll probably will be away a while more. I had to help my cousin and her dad with all the funeral arrangements and it was a lot. It’s been a really tough few days.
I want to thank everyone for the kindness, the thoughtful messages, and for spreading my family’s fundraiser around. Thanks to the love and support of so many of you, we reached our goal. Your help has eased our burden in a significant way, and I am so thankful for you guys.
I had spoken some weeks ago about my mother’s cancer diagnosis. Unfortunately, the worst case scenario came true, and her battle was very short - we lost her yesterday morning. Cancer is truly evil.
I have set up a GoFundMe that would really help my siblings and I cover her incoming medical bills and funeral costs.
If you could pass this around, I would be so grateful. I miss you guys, and I hope you’re all doing well. Thank you for always being there for me.
