‘Your health is your wealth’
“If she was diagnosed in 2008 she would only have had a few months. But through new treatments she was given an extra five years of life.”
Those are the words of primary school teacher Odharnait Collins whose mum Joan passed away in November 2018 with stage four melanoma.
After being diagnosed in 2013, Baltimore local Joan, with the help of her daughter Odharnait, got involved with Cork-based group, Breakthrough Cancer Research (Breakthrough), organising fundraisers and other community-based initiatives designed to aid cancer research in Ireland.
“Ever since mum was diagnosed she was looking at what she could do to help. She started a fundraising event and we still run it every second year. We wanted to continue it in her legacy,” Odharnait told the Cork Independent.
Yesterday Breakthrough announced the launch of a national awareness campaign Let’s Get to 100% Together, which warns about the importance of protecting skin from UV damage.
The Leeside charity also gave the green light to a new skin cancer research project this week. The chemo-free non-surgical treatment for skin cancers uses calcium instead of chemotherapy and could be available for patients in a clinical trial, initially in Cork, as early as November.
The hope is that the non-toxic but highly effective treatment can be delivered to outpatients.
“It would be great to see the 100 per cent, just to see other families not having to go through the same ordeal that we did. At the end of the day, your health is your wealth,” said Odharnait.
According to Breakthrough, Ireland has the highest mortality rate from melanoma in Europe, and cases of skin cancer have doubled in the last decade.
Together with ‘Ireland’s Fittest Family’ coach Anna Geary and Olympian David Gillick, Breakthrough is stressing the particular importance of improving skin cancer prevention behaviours in sporty and outdoorsy people.
Odharnait said of her mother: “She was quite outdoorsy and a very community driven woman. She loved getting out and about for her walks. She was brilliant in making sure we were protected from the sun.”
She added: “My neighbour, who is a gardener, was very close with my mother and they got diagnosed around the same time with melanoma. He’s doing great thank God, due to the treatments.”
Breakthrough is calling on people to increase their UV awareness and be vigilant when applying sunscreen, to ensure they achieve 100 per cent coverage.
Using UV technology, the charity is highlighting the hard to reach and often missed areas such as the back of the neck, ‘widows peak’, tip of the nose, ears and the lower legs.