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This is Brave: Marit Peterson

My journey started almost fourteen years ago when my mom noticed a raised pink bump on the base of my right ring finger. I was only a year old at the time. For many months, my mom took me to numerous doctors to try and find answers. Each one told her it was nothing; however, she thought otherwise. She thought it looked like a melanoma lesion my grandfather had years prior. Her continual pestering to doctors finally worked, and I was called in for a 30-minute “cosmetic” surgery to just remove the bump. The 30-minute surgery turned into two hours, and afterwards the doctors sent the tissue they removed to be biopsied at several leading cancer centers. All of the results came back inconclusive. After weeks of back and forth, I was finally referred to MD Anderson Cancer Center. It was there that my melanoma was confirmed, and my cancer journey began.

Being that melanoma was known as an old person disease, people didn’t take me seriously. One time, someone told my mom to get me out of the melanoma clinic because children weren’t allowed to be there. Little did they know that I was the patient.

At MD Anderson, I met the doctor that saved my life, Dr. Jeffrey E. Lee. At this point in time, for a melanoma diagnosis like mine, the life expectancy was just six months. And this was for adults – I was only a toddler. However, that was not the plan for me, and I write this 156 months after my diagnosis, living life to the fullest because I wasn’t even supposed to have a life at all.

Following my surgeries, I had a port put in and year-long treatment with interferon. For a solid year, I experienced extremely high fevers (up to 105!), night terrors and was a very sick little girl. But, I survived, and for that I am grateful.

Surprisingly, I have no memories from my cancer treatments. It must be God’s way of protecting me from those bad memories.

Although my family and I were thrown down a path that no one would ever want to go, we decided to make the best of it. In the year following my treatment, my mom and grandfather, the one who had a melanoma like mine, established the Marit Liv Peterson Fund for Melanoma Research with the goal of raising half a million dollars to support melanoma research at MD Anderson Cancer Center. We began by asking family and friends to contribute, but half a million dollars proved to be too difficult of an amount to raise with them alone. That’s when we decided to hold our first golf tournament to help raise money. Since we began, 100% of every dollar raised has gone directly to Dr. Lee and his melanoma research team. And every year, Dr. Lee and his team join us for free skin screenings and to report back on the research that was funded by the golf tournament. To date, we have raised over two million dollars and have caught five melanomas and numerous other skin cancers on our players through the skin screenings.

Although my melanoma was likely genetic, I do all in my power to help educate others on melanoma prevention. In 2016, the Melanoma Research Foundation (MRF) reached out to me and my family and invited us to go out to Washington, D.C., to advocate for melanoma research. We were taught about needs in the melanoma community such as funding and education. Then, the next day, we went to Capitol Hill and spoke with our senators and representatives about these topics relating to melanoma. We have been going to D.C. for the past four years and through this, we have connected with Coolibar! When I was in 8th grade, I was invited to go to the MRF’s Pediatric Summit in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where I took place in a mini fashion show wearing Coolibar clothes. It was super fun for me and all the little kids there.

The path that someone takes when presented with a challenge can say a lot about who they are as a person. When my family and I were presented with cancer, we decided to make the most of it. As weird as it sounds, my cancer has given me so many amazing opportunities that have given me a greater look on life and how I should appreciate every day that I have.

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