Impact of our Education

Adrianna Manzi and Mary Gill

Adrianna (L) received the melanoma lesson while she was an 8th grade student at Kennedy Middle School in Woburn, Massachusetts. A few months later she noticed a changing mole on her wrist that was diagnosed as an early melanoma and successfully removed.

Mary (R) received the melanoma lesson at Reading High School, MA as a freshman. In her senior year she found a changing mole on her back; it was also an early melanoma and was successfully removed. Because they found their melanomas early Adrianna and Mary avoided what otherwise could have been unimaginable tragedies.

Paul Coffy

Paul received the melanoma lesson from health teacher Maria Spicher in the 11th grade while he was a student at McDowell High School in Erie, PA. After the lesson he thought of a mole on his toe that had been there most of his life. For a few weeks prior to the lesson the mole had been getting darker and slightly larger but until then, he had never thought it was anything serious. Shortly after the lesson he had it removed; the pathology report indicated it was a severely atypical mole (pre-melanoma) that had a high probabilty of becoming cancerous.

Tania Chrzanowski

Tania is a health teacher and department chair at South Hadley High School in Massachusetts. She attended a live MEF teacher-education session in 2006 and has been teaching the lesson since then. As a result, she became concerned about a changing mole on her arm and, in 2012, had it removed. The mole turned out to be an early melanoma. She believes the melanoma was caused by her tanning bed use as a teen in high school. As a result of her experience she developed and now operates a part-time spray-tanning business. She is passionate about educating others about melanoma and especially to avoid tanning beds

Cindi Eggemeyer

Cindi is a health teacher at Festus High School in Missouri who watched the MEF teacher-education video and started presenting the student lesson in 2012. She became more aware of a scar on her leg that resulted from removal of a benign mole several years earlier but looked like the mole may have been returning. She also was concerned about a new spot that had appeared on her arm. Both spots were excised; the one on her leg was a melanoma and the new spot on her arm was a possible melanoma (sometimes it is difficult for pathology to distinguish between a severely atypical mole and an early melanoma).

Patrick Dennehy

After receiving the melanoma lesson in health class Patrick became concerned about a suspicious spot on his ankle. The mole was abnormally shaped and itchy and, after viewing photos on the MEF website, he became even more concerned. Biopsy results showed the mole was an atypical spitz nevus that had a high likelihood of developing into a melanoma if left untreated. The mole was successfully removed by a plastic surgeon. Jason wrote “I’m glad I found it early enough to have it taken care of before it got worse!”

Jackie Hicks

Jackie had no idea that presenting the melanoma lesson and showing the “My Melanoma Vlog” video to her students would have a major impact on her life. After showering she noticed a new “freckle.” It wasn’t dark or irregularly shaped but, because of the video, she knew it should be looked at. Because the freckle was new the dermatologist PA took a sample for biopsy. The result indicated an early stage melanoma that was then removed successfully. Jackie wrote “I truly believe that if it weren’t for this lesson I wouldn’t have thought twice about my ”freckle.“