According to Science Daily, scientific research at the Mayo Clinic has linked melanoma with Parkinson's disease, a movement disorder. Patients with Parkinson's were roughly four times as likely to have had a history of melanoma than those without Parkinson's, and people with melanoma had a fourfold higher risk of developing Parkinson's. The lead author in the Mayo Clinic article is Lauren A. Dalvin, M.D., who studies ocular cancer. Apparently, you can get melanoma of the eyes. Lovely.
Nobody has proven a genetic link, but to me it seems likely. However, if you have melanoma, a particularly deadly form of skin cancer, in your family you should be checked regularly by a dermatologist. I'm a Fitzpatrick 1, according to the last physician I saw, which means I have particularly light-colored skin. I'm like my father: white skin with black hair. (Only now it's going gray.) I tan like a baking powder biscuit: a few freckles and a light tan.
My Uncle Dick (Richard Hugh Houser) flew a bomber in WWII. He died in his twenties of a melanoma on his shoulder. My Dad, 93, developed Parkinson's in his late eighties. So Uncle Dick's melanoma and Dad's Parkinson's are separated by approximately 60 years.
If the study author, Lauren Dalvin, or any other medical researcher at the Mayo Clinic or the University of Iowa wants a study subject to study possible genetic links between melanoma and Parkinson's disease, I'm going to volunteer. I've had my DNA done and I paid to have my father's DNA done, so I know what my paternal surnames are and who my paternal DNA relatives are. Not only that, but the Pembrokes on my father's side were in Providence, Rhode Island in 1636 when Roger Williams, on my mother's side, was in Providence, Rhode Island. In fact, there are Williamses on both sides of the family. That might make the genetic links more confusing, but maybe not. There's lots of British on both sides.
Needless to say, I have Jody McKee at Town Square Dermatology in Coralville check my skin a lot. I've already had a small basal cell carcinoma taken off of my left shoulder. Nothing else. I don't know whether to alert my relatives or not. It's not like it's good news or anything. But I did alert my children. I've already alerted my paternal cousin Candy about the blindness on the Houser side, multiple types. Does Candy really want or need more good news about the Housers, the Althousers, and the Funkhousers? We are Carpenters as well, if you're a Carpenter. And McCains, McQueens, a lot of Irish names.
I'm glad the University of Iowa changed their vision center name away from Steve Wynn's, given his reputation for sexual harassment. But I'm also glad they didn't give back the money he gave the vision center for research. That would be a tragedy, considering that the neuro-opthalmology department at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics was the only department in the country that my father went to in the country that was able to diagnose his blindness, which was caused by Transient Ischemic Optic Neuropathy.
For a certified genius, as my father used to love to tell me, he's not just Mensa, he's smarter than that. He's in the Triple 9 Club, but he wasn't smart enough to take his blood pressure medicine, which is why he's blind. Sudden onset of partial blindness is the key symptom. The day I took him to his appointment, he hadn't taken any BP medicine at all, so we spent about 11 hours in ER after the appointment till his BP came down.
He was sailing alone in the Pacific Ocean when he suddenly went half-blind in one eye. He made it to port. He's now almost totally blind. He can see shadows, he told me. He survived WWII; strikes from two bolts of lightning; numerous brawls (local toughs in bars enjoyed proving themselves against a 5'8" paratrooper and Dad, although he never admitted it, enjoyed proving that he could throw them across the room); a pit bull named Tank by the Virginia State Patrol, renamed Frank, who remained Tank and tried to kill him; and at least five strokes. Up till now, I'd say he's led a charmed life. The poor man isn't doing too well now, though. He's in the final stages of Parkinson's. God only knows why he wants to live to be 95, but that's what he told me the last time I talked to him. If I were incoherent and suffering, I wouldn't want to keep going, but the will to live is strong in that one.
https://patch.com/iowa/iowacity/melanoma-parkinsons-disease-may-be-genetically-linked
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