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what it feels like: 'only another cancer patient can understand the fears' after getting diagnosed with melanoma
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mike copeman used humour, connection, and faith to get through melanoma treatment.
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mike copeman spent much of his life in the sun. as a photographer, he was mainly known for his rodeo work, but also in other spaces such as architecture, weddings, team sports, and commercials; being outside was just a part of the job description. with a camera in hand, long sleeves, and a cowboy hat, mike spent his life doing what he loved—taking great photographs.
mike had “a really good career” and is grateful for all that he has accomplished in the photography space. while now retired, he is up there with the greats and was inducted into the canadian rodeo historical society’s hall of fame in 2022.
unfortunately, it was that same career that led to him being diagnosed with two types of skin cancer: basal cell carcinoma first and then melanoma. while he realizes now how important sunscreen is, the downfall of wearing it in the rodeo arena outweighed the benefits since he thought his clothing and hat choice protected him.
“all that exposure to the sun, even though i was wearing long sleeves and a cowboy hat, which i thought would protect me, and i never wore sunscreen,” he said. “because it would attract dust, dirt, and stuff. so, it came back to bite me.”
an introductory diagnosis of skin cancer
in 2018, mike went to see his physician about something new growing on his nose. while waiting for a specialist, as his physician had referred him, he found a dermatologist to get him in faster. they discovered a spot of what mike calls “the puppy dog of cancer.”
“it was a very, very painful basal cell carcinoma,” he said. “the treatment was really rough. as i’ve explained to people, it’s a topical chemotherapy called actikerall.”
mike goes on to describe, through laughter, that his face and nose looked similar to a can of crushed anuses (he used a different word), calling it “the best way to describe” the appearance of his face after going through the painful topical therapy for basal cell carcinoma.
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“it’s funny now, in retrospect, how bad it looked.”
when his treatment for basal cell carcinoma was wrapped up, mike noticed a new skin concern that he couldn’t ignore—a bleeding mole on his right shoulder. as soon as he showed his doctor, it was clear that it was serious and needed to be dealt with immediately.
spotting a bleeding mole as a “sure sign of malignant melanoma”
the mole that mike had found was raised and bleeding, and his physician removed it quickly and with good margins to ensure that, if it was confirmed to be melanoma, the deadliest of all skin cancers, it was all cut out to avoid spread to other areas of the body.
when he received confirmation that it was melanoma, he was also told that it had grown past the margins they used to remove it, and he was back in the dermatologist’s chair to figure out what would happen next.
“i went back to the dermatologist who did my nose,” he said, “and they fast-tracked me for that.”
mike’s dermatologist was not able to treat melanoma adequately, so he did what any good physician would do and referred him to a place that could help: the cross cancer institute in edmonton, alberta.
once he was in with the institute, the entire process was quick because they realized that the melanoma wasn’t localized to mike’s bleeding mole. it had spread throughout his body, and the goal was to now remove the sentinel lymph nodes, which are the first lymph nodes cancer spreads to on its way to the rest of the body.
“it’s pretty scary, you know,” he said.
during that time, mike’s business was still going strong, and he was still earning his living through photography. he had to shut things down because he realized that spending that much time in the sun didn’t do him any favours when it came to developing not one but two skin cancers.
his history of sunburns as a young person was also front and centre in his mind.
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“i got two extremely bad sunburns when i was 15 and when i was 21. so much so that my skin was bubbling, and there was this awful, huge amounts of peeling,” he said. “i had to be under a doctor’s care.”
that’s why mike believes he developed melanoma, and he’s not wrong. severe sunburns in childhood or early adulthood can play a significant role in developing melanoma later in life.
life-saving treatment and saying goodbye to professional photography
after realizing that his diagnosis was more severe, he began telling his clients that he could no longer work. he remembers being told by his doctor that he shouldn’t be “going out and swinging a golf club,” which, to him, meant the end of his life as an outdoor rodeo photographer, which involved being in the sun and high-impact physical movements—both of which were a no go.
“at that point, i knew i can’t be in a rodeo arena, which is how i earn my living. i was in the arena with my camera, and i climbed fences to get out of the way, and i had been hit a few times because it just either wasn’t quick enough or the horse did something unusual,” he said. “i knew at that point i can’t afford to be hit.”
during his treatment, he had undergone a total of five surgeries. while going through the process, mike had to plan his life accordingly so he wouldn’t get lymphedema, which is swelling that directly affects the lymphatic system. it can be severe, leading to life-threatening infection in some cases, because it affects the immune system’s ability to care for the body.
“if something hits me, lymphedema would affect me for the rest of my life. so, that was it,” he said.
he remembers being unable to “get my head around” the severity of it because his business being shut down was like taking away a piece of himself that he had worked so hard to cultivate.
he had to tell his clients, such as the calgary stampede, the canadian pro rodeo association, and all of the builders he shot for when he was doing architectural photography, that he would no longer be able to capture events.
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he spent a lot of his time finding others who could live up to his name, giving recommendations to his former clients, and keeping things running for the organizations he loved working with.
“it’s worse, i think, for people who just have a job, and now they’re on hiatus from their job,” mike said. “dwell about it all the time. i don’t have time to dwell. i have stuff to do.”
pushing through the nerves of cancer surgeries
the entire process of treating his melanoma had mike feeling nervous and scared. he was afraid he would miss his first appointment, and once he made it to the waiting room, he realized just how real the ordeal was.
“i was so nervous, i had to pee five times in 15 minutes,” he said through laughter.
his medical team decided that he would be able to take ativan before the surgery to help calm his nerves after his last nervous pee, and that helped significantly while climbing up onto the bed to be rolled into the operating room.
“that was a real happy pill,” he said. “instead of being nervous, i was happy. when they were wheeling me down to surgery, i was waving at people, giving peace signs and the fear and stuff was gone.”
three weeks after his first surgery, he was back in the same place again, still nervous but more prepared for what was to come. however, he remembers knowing that, since more surgeries were necessary, the cancer had gone somewhere else, which left him thinking, “this is going to be bad.”
the ativan took longer to kick in the second time around, so while he was being wheeled into surgery, his thoughts bounced around between having to pee and feeling bad about watching an older woman walk down the aisle beside him while he was comfortably tucked away into a bed.
“i’m in the gurney, and they have an 86-year-old woman, and i said, ‘well, instead of her walking, can’t she just sit at the end of the gurney?’”
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they denied him, and he remembers feeling embarrassed about the whole ordeal.
“i don’t feel good about this at all,” he said. “the drug isn’t working, and i have to pee…again.”
eventually, the pill kicked in, and he started to feel better, and after each surgery, the anxiety was easier to handle.
throughout his ordeal, mike could lean on his wife, iona, for care. even afterwards, when immunotherapy began to make him very ill, his wife was there to take him to appointments, get him dressed in the morning, and help him get through the aftereffects he dealt with, such as blood poisoning and acute kidney failure, and delusions from the drugs he was given to take care of everything.
he also developed ptsd from the treatment and its adverse effects and got to a point where when he heard a knock on his hospital door, he would jump. joint pain was also a significant side effect of the medication he was on for his many health ailments, leading to him having to, on some days, crawl up the stairs to get around his home.
after all was said and done, mike had five surgeries, immunotherapy, an eight-day stint in the hospital, and targeted therapy for the cancer. he also had to undergo treatment for ptsd and kidney failure.
luckily for mike, everything worked, and since then, there has been no evidence of disease (ned).
using humour, connection, and faith to get through melanoma treatment
the melanoma diagnosis and treatment left mike in a horrible state, both physically and mentally. but throughout it all, he managed to maintain a level of positivity. he mentions that he “always found humour to help” him.
however, after all the treatments for his cancer and the health issues he faced afterwards, he struggled with chronic pain, which led to “grouchiness.”
“nobody wants to be around you,” he said when talking about how his family and caregivers ended up taking the brunt of his mood.
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he recounts getting a recommendation from his daughter, a registered nurse, to use cbd to help deal with all the ailments he was facing, and he was more than willing to give it a shot if it meant offering change for the better.
once he was able to figure out the proper dose, he realized that it didn’t essentially take the pain away but did help him care less about it all, and he was no longer feeling the same level of negativity.
“it didn’t kill the pain, but you didn’t care anymore, and it was good,” he said.
eventually, mike began using a song to signal to his family that his cbd dose had kicked in and he was no longer in the same bad mood. the song, sunny days by lighthouse, would echo through his home, giving his loved ones a sign that he was no longer the tortured version of mike but rather back to the easy-going person they all know and love.
joining a support group through melanoma canada also helped not only mike but others going through the same journey with melanoma.
“i recounted some of these stories because we help each other out,” mike said. he explained that sharing these funny stories of his melanoma journey could offer a level of comedic relief to others going through the same horrible experience.
now that mike is cancer-free, he feels a strong connection to others who have experienced similar experiences, and he loves getting the chance to chat with anyone who may resonate with what he’s gone through.
“we have an instant connection,” he said. “i always do with anybody who has cancer. in fact, i will seek them out. if i hear somebody talking about cancer, i will talk to them. give them a sentence or two, so they know i’m one of them. we can talk to each other, and nobody else can understand. only another cancer patient can understand the fears that we go through.”
“we’re there for each other, for the support, and i can share the things, the resources that have been available to me and to all cancer patients, like the social psychological part of it, which is critically important, and then of course … the drug treatment and that’s great.”
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faith and hope were other guiding lights for mike while he underwent melanoma treatment.
“the other one, which i believe firmly for a final hope, is to have deep faith in our lord and saviour, and we’re going to go when this is all finished. it’s a final hope, and there’s a lot of people who don’t have that,” he said. “we all want to wake up on this side of the dirt. it’s much nicer up here, but it will eventually end, and you have that belief in faith to carry you through.”
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