Sunscreen Up: Personal Stories

Have you ever wondered what the sun is doing to your skin? Have you ever spotted a mysterious spot on your skin? How long do you spend out in the sun? Do you or have you ever used sunscreen? Have you ever been sun burnt more than once in your life? Kent Kevern answered these questions back in September 2010 as he found out the seriousness of the damage of what had been done. He found a spot on his left forearm, within a month it grew to the size of a nickle. Without hesitating, he went straight to his doctor to have it checked out. This is when reality came into pure misery. The spot was taken off his arm and he found out it was a stage 3 of melanoma cancer. Shocking as it was they were able to treat it with surgery and luckily no radiation had to be done. He was sent to Dr. Hansen at the Huntsman Cancer Institute to have his spots removed. Kent had frequent check-ups every three or so months. He had his second surgery to remove more skin cancer in November of 2011. This time there was red blisters on his arm, with this being the most painful surgery and the most stitches. The radius of the skin cancer had spread to about 3 inches up from his wrist and about 2 1/2 inches wide. His doctor was sure he got it all, until he went in for another check-up in August 2012. There was one spot he was concerned with, but it wasn't as bad as he had thought. There were some squamous cell and basal cell detected at this time. He then had the squamous cell cancer spots removed from his back and his nose. A few weeks later, he under went treatment and had pre-cancerous spots burned off his arms and face, there was a total of five spots removed.

Below are some pictures of what Kent Kevern had to go through to have these spots removed from his body. Beware, they are graphic, but they are real, and prove what the sun can actually do to you.

This Kent's first surgery (open wound), they had to go deep into the muscle to get the melanoma. The red spots you see are basal cell carcinoma cancer cells. The bottom picture is after the surgery.

This is during Kent's second surgery, the basal cell white marks turned into squamous cell cancer.

After second surgery. If this doesn't scare you.....

Basal cell on upper arm

After these surgeries Kent was in remission of his cancer and his doctor gave him the good news to not worry. Until February of 2013 came along. This time his doctor found stage 2 melanoma cancer on his forehead. They scheduled a surgery for the following week and found that they had to go deep into his muscle and almost to the skull. With a quarter-size wound and 34 stitches later, they finished the hour long surgery. They took this one very seriously, once on the face it is hard to stop spreading, luckily they were able to catch it early enough to stop the spread. On the same day, they removed more squamous cell carcinoma from his left forearm. While waiting the for the results is always scary and intense, however, Kent got the good news that they were able to get it all, at least for now.