2009 Honorary Survivor

Emily Bauman Black

My story begins in June of 2005. I was 20 years old and just returned home from a study abroad trip in Mexico. I was taking classes at the university level and didn’t think life could get much better for me. I was having the time of my life with new friends and new experiences.

A couple of weeks after my homecoming I went to the dermatologist to have a specific part of my skin on my back examined. I wasn’t worried at all, and at first glance my doctor didn’t think there was anything to worry about either.  After all, I was too young, wasn’t I?  

“Let’s take a biopsy just in case,” he told me.
Days later, I had come to find out that this spot on my back was about to change my life. The biopsy had tested positive for malignant melanoma. I didn’t even know that skin cancer could move through the body and into vital organs! I had a lot to learn. Soon I met with new doctors and underwent an 8 hour surgery to see just how far it had spread.  Stage IV. Everything came to a screeching halt. It took some time for me to grasp the gravity of this situation, until doctors told me to pull out of school and begin the fight for my life. I entered a whole new world of uncertainty, fear, and desperation. I didn’t do anything to deserve skin cancer; it truly can happen to anyone.  I am living proof that no one is immune to this terrible illness.

This disease has led me around the country. I began treatment here in Milwaukee, to find out that they didn’t have the ability to help me. I went to Madison and eventually Maryland, along the way meeting many doctors whose goal was to keep me alive. Finally I was referred to a clinic in Illinois, where I am not only finding success, but complete remission is in sight! I am forever thankful to all the doctors and staff in each and every clinic for their support and knowledge. I wouldn’t be here without their dedication to clinical trials, and I wouldn’t even have had opportunities to enter them without research funding.  I am entirely grateful to God that He would put the right doctors in my life at the right time.

Melanoma is not just appearing in people who have spent excessive amounts of time in the sun or in tanning booths, it’s happening to people like me. I want to be a voice that is heard.  It has been a long fight, but I know this has happened to me for a reason and I want to make a difference. Please contribute so that we can have more funding for research and be closer to a cure.