Memorial Walk Also A Warning On Skin Cancer

BOURNE- The first thought Kelly P. DeMello of Buzzards Bay had when she heard that her mother was diagnosed with melanoma was, “You don’t die of skin cancer.” She then learned in the most difficult way possible that if melanoma is not correctly diagnosed quickly enough, you can.
Ms. DeMello’s mother, Terry O’Neill, died in September of 2007 after skin cancer had spread throughout her system.
She has organized a memorial walk, which will be held on September 13. Terry’s Walk will benefit the Melanoma Foundation of New England and inform others what she wished her family had known.
In 2000, Mrs. O’Neill had a small, atypical mole removed from the back of her leg, a minor surgery for which, she was told, no follow-ups were necessary. At Christmastime in 2003, however, she developed a large mass on her upper leg.
Mrs. O’Neill was immediately scheduled for surgery to remove the growth.
The results of her mother’s biopsy came back, Ms. DeMello remembered, on her own son’s birthday. At that point, although the doctors went in and removed the lymph node nearest to the mass, the cancer had already spread throughout the entire lymph system.
Ms. DeMello heard that her mother might only have from six to 12 months to live.
“We were floored,” Ms.
DeMello said of the family’s reaction. The O’Neills are fair-skinned and Irish and burn easily, she said, but they never thought that their mother’s happy days in the sun could result in death.
If they had known how serious melanoma could be, they would have ensured that their mother had a followup after the first mole was discovered.
After the melanoma diagnosis, however, the family decided not to look at the past or raise the issue of misdiagnosis, she said; they were too busy fighting the cancer.
Ms. DeMello’s mother had always been the not-so-typical stay-at-home mom. A Scituate resident, she was the one, her daughter said, who kept the teachers’ kids after school and was always present for her own two daughters. She also took care of her mother, Ms. DeMello’s grandmother, throughout all of her treatment.
Her mother’s reaction to the cancer diagnosis was typical of her: she started to fight for every bit of time she could.
Ms. DeMello thinks about how different life would have been if her mother had been treated back in 2000, but said her family is very grateful to the doctors at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston who cared for her mother after 2003.
Her mother, she said, signed up for every cutting-edge treatment and clinical trial available.
Over the next four years, she had seven surgeries, three interleukin sessions, radiation therapy, and three rounds of chemotherapy.
In spite of all of that treatment, Mrs. O’Neill finally succumbed to the disease when it reached her brain. The family buried her on her 60th birthday.
Once, Ms. DeMello remembered, when her mother met another woman with cancer, that woman said, “You can’t have cancer. You’re too happy to have cancer.”
Among the things that made Mrs. O’Neill happy during the extra years won by her fighting spirit, Ms. DeMello said, was the birth of Ms. DeMello’s and her husband Christopher’s three children and the two born to Ms. O’Neill’s other daughter.
What Beth Israel gave her mother, in essence, was four years in which she could meet those grandchildren and pass on “her wisdom and her love,” Ms. DeMello said.
Ms. DeMello’s father, James O’Neill, was devastated that he could not save his wife’s life. But he has, she said, been very active in organizing the walk in hopes that it can save someone else’s.
The walk’s $20 entrance fee, $15 for those who preregister, will go directly to a Melanoma Foundation project to better educate physicians and other healthcare professionals in properly identifying and treating melanoma.
The entire family hopes it will also raise awareness in everyday people. The Cape, like Scituate, is a beach community, Ms. DeMello said, and people need to know how important it is to protect themselves and their loved ones from skin damage and learn melanoma’s warning signs.
Although her mother and father moved to Mansfield shortly before her mother’s cancer diagnosis was made, old friends from Scituate and elsewhere, including school friends Ms. DeMello has not heard from in ages, are all coming to Buzzards Bay to support the walk.
About 100 people, half of them family, have already signed up for the walk.
Registration for Terry’s Walk will start at 2 PM near the railroad bridge in Buzzards Bay.
One of Ms. DeMello’s cousins, who is a clown, is coming from Portland, Oregon, and will entertain participants. A family friend will be there with hula hoops for the children.
Since Ms. DeMello is a Massachusetts Maritime Academy graduate and works in the school’s admissions office, the MMA band will also be there.
Anyone interested in the walk, or learning more about melanoma, can go to the family’s website, www.terryoneillmemorial.blogspot.com or call Ms. DeMello at 508-759-1644.