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This is Brave: Bravely Raising Awareness Through a Pandemic

Hello, my name is Bethany Gambardella-Greenway. I was diagnosed with stage 3a melanoma in august of 2016. I have been supporting “This is Brave” since it first began.

In 2018, I introduced everyone to my journey. It was a big leap forward for me in terms of sharing my story and helping others: https://blog.coolibar.com/bethany-greenway.  

In 2019, I worked through the physical and emotional impact of my diagnosis and learned what I needed to do to stay strong and present for my daughters.

In 2020, I was invited to help introduce you to my amazing friend Patrick Guddal: https://blog.coolibar.com/this-is-brave-warrior-to-warrior/.

This year, in 2021, when Coolibar invited me to write again, I was somewhat stymied. I haven’t done anything! In the past year, I haven’t done any speaking, volunteering, or public fundraising. The activist part of my life was put on pause along with normal life thanks to the pandemic. 

Like a lot of others, the past year was extra challenging. In order to feel some level of normalcy and feel like I was making a difference, I started making masks for friends, family and a local business. All the time I would have spent the year before helping fundraise for melanoma research, I spent making masks.

Still, as an activist, I felt somewhat lost and without purpose. I know I wasn’t alone in this. I kept blogging and talking about my own skin cancer journey, with the added variable that COVID-19 brought into the mix. I put off my six-month skin check and seeing my oncologist. It was a very scary time for me and other cancer survivors.

Before the pandemic, my melanoma treatment has been immunotherapy, Yervoy, which really did a number on my immune system. It’s been more than a year since my last infusion and still when I get a cold or virus, I’m sick for double the time a normal person would be sick for. My immune system basically goes bonkers.

Knowing what we knew about COVID in the beginning, I was so fearful of what could happen if I got it. I am a single mother of two girls, Luciana (9) and Arabella (6). I was beside myself with fear. I’ve now gotten my vaccine; the fear has become less but it’s still present. I fear for my friends and family who haven’t gotten their shots yet, and I wonder what it will be like once we truly find our new normal as a society. Raising awareness in 2021 is definitely going to be different than in years past. At this point who knows what’s going to happen. However, what I am hopeful for is people coming together for the greater good and all those things everyone had to put off during 2020 finally come to fruition.

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This is Brave

This is Brave: Bethany Shows Us Her True Strength

This last year for me has brought many changes and thankfully… Progress.

Health-wise, I’ve had a few little health scares since I wrote back in May 2018, but nothing serious or remotely life-threatening. Thank goodness! First, I had a staging scan to make sure all the immunotherapy (yervoy) infusions I get every three months are doing their job. It was during this scan that they found something on my liver. After a PET scan, the growth on my liver was determined to be nothing but a cyst and not metabolizing. The PET did reveal some reactivity in the lymph nodes on my neck. Which can mean bad news for me as well, but after a neck sonogram and a closer look it was determined that I just have Lymphedema (lymph node damage from radiation), which again was a huge relief.

Honestly, this is par for the course when you are in treatment for cancer. The closer you look the more things you find and if you’re lucky, it’s nothing. It’s a big mental weight, but worrying about what the results will be will not change the outcome. The only thing all the worry and anxiety does is ruin today.

In addition to tests, my face has changed yet again… but in the most positive way! I’ve had a few more plastic surgeries to fill in the dent on my forehead made by the removal of my melanoma. I’m grateful for this leap forward. I’ll be nearing the end of treatment soon and should be getting my last infusion this fall.

Emotionally, (because the emotional side of melanoma often feels bigger than the physical) I’ve had quite a year. In the midst of all of these tests and surgeries, my husband served me with a divorce. I was not surprised. Cancer is tough and brings out the best and worst in people. He was not capable of giving me the compassion I needed, and I was unable to overlook his shortcoming. I hope this shift gives us both the opportunity to find happiness.

My girls have been my inspiration and driving force. I have had to dig deep to start a new, independent life. In a few months, I sold our house, restarted my career (which I had left seven years ago), and moved into an apartment. Through all this change, the girls have bravely accepted each step-in stride. I am beyond proud of them.

Another one of my saving graces was advocacy. Thanks to my connections and my Melanoma Photo Diary on Facebook, many opportunities to continue raising awareness for melanoma and other skin cancers have opened up for me:

  1. The Shade Project invited me to speak at their annual Down and Derby fundraiser. SUCH an honor.
  2. Meredith’s Mission for Melanoma invited me to speak at their Gala to benefit the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
  3. AND Coolibar and the Melanoma Research Foundation reached back out for This is Brave!

Moving forward into 2019 and beyond, my girls and I plan to continue supporting advocacy and awareness as much as we can. While I’m wrapping up my treatment with my last two infusions and the reconstruction on my face by December, our drive to support protection, prevention and early detection will keep going. Despite the “hardships” that I may have gone through since diagnosis, I’m grateful for the strength I have and my ability to support others.

To catch up on Bethany’s battle and story from last year, visit HERE.

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Skin Diaries This is Brave

This is Brave: Bethany Greenway

The word I’ve chosen to represent my melanoma journey is Aware.

My name is Bethany Greenway, I’m a stay at home mom to two amazing little girls. I was diagnosed with stage 3a melanoma August 2016. I wasn’t surprised about the diagnosis because my mom had melanoma at my age, it was just my body’s genetic timer going off.

I had a spot on my forehead that looked like a light brown liver spot, it made its appearance while I was pregnant with my second daughter. I went for my annual skin check when my little one was 9 months old, and got the all clear. I thought nothing of the spot and chalked it up to hormones until it grew a mole and the mole started to ache.

I went to see my dermatologist who sent me to a plastic surgeon for a biopsy. Three weeks later I got the call from my surgeon, I had two types of melanoma: desmoplastic melanoma, which is very rare, and regular melanoma surrounding it.

At this point, I’ve had two surgeries to remove the cancer and the nearest lymph node removed, which tested positive for melanoma and that put me at stage 3a. With melanoma being such an aggressive cancer, I had to begin treatment to prevent recurrence. I started immunotherapy October 4, 2016 and won’t be done with it until October 2019. The type of immunotherapy I’m on is called Yervoy, and it has a whole host of nasty side effects. Reading the list of them is worse than the drug ads you see on tv. I’ve been lucky in that department, so far, just fatigue and itchy rashes for me. After my first four infusions, I did radiation therapy for six weeks on my head and neck because this was the possible path the melanoma traveled in my body.

Most of what cancer patients go through is mental. Yes, we endure so much physically, but once the hard stuff is over we are left with merely a shell of what once was.  It also teaches us a powerful lesson in self-awareness and how to truly listen to our bodies. Discovering the new “normal” during treatment and feeling your body change in ways that you never thought possible is an eye-opening journey. It tunes you into who you are at your core.

Following the surgery on my face, I felt overwhelmed by the change. This wasn’t an optional cosmetic or aesthetic surgery, like a nose job or breast augmentation, this was done to save my life. It was also 100 times more obvious. How do I handle this? I kept asking myself over and over. So I chose to show my face to the world and show them how scary skin cancer can be and started my Melanoma Photo Diary on Facebook. If I can reach just one person and inspire them to go see the dermatologist and get that biopsy done, then that’s what I need to do. So I did. I took pictures and wrote daily. I still do. Mostly, I keep the diary so I can enjoy spending time with friends and family and not have to give them a medical update every time I see someone new.

Why am I telling you my story? So you can learn from me and to raise awareness about the black beast we call melanoma. Listen to your body and pay attention to the changes it makes.

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