BALTIMORE — May 1 is Melanoma Monday, it's a day dedicated to spreading awareness about the dangers of sun exposure and skin cancer.
Scott Evans Woods found a mole on his arm back in the summer of 2020, he had spent a lot of the pandemic outdoors during the quarantine.
"My buddy of mine had an outdoor pool so we were all hanging by the pool four, five, six of us almost on a daily basis out in the sun a lot, not using sunscreen being a knuckle head like I am," said Woods.
After a while he noticed the mole grow in size to about the size of a pencil eraser, shortly after, he noticed a lump.
"I started feeling tenderness under my right underarm and then one day I felt a lump under there and of course the light bulb went off inside my head, something is not right," he said.
Early 2021, his dermatologist took a biopsy and the results came back positive for cancer, stage three melanoma.
That's when Woods was sent over to a specialist, Dr. Edward McCarron a surgical oncologist with Medstar Health.
"The melanoma was diagnosed late in its progression so once the melanoma has spread to the lymph node, it becomes very difficult to treat," said Dr. McCarron.
What would have been a simple treatment was now complex.
Woods was part of a new trial which included infusion every three weeks for 54 weeks and surgery to remove the tumor.
Now he is officially cancer free, he still carries around the scars from surgery as a reminder of what he overcame, and he wants others to take the precautions he didn't.
