Lauren Boselli

Daughter’s battle with her father’s Melanoma

Lauren Boselli looks like any other 21 year-old college student—beautiful, stylish and outgoing, but what nobody sees is the hardships she’s endured while her father has battled melanoma a total of five times over the past twenty years of his life.

After multiple removals of skin tumors all over his body, three bouts of radiation and an entire reconstructive surgery performed on his face, Tony Boselli is sixty years old and melanoma-free.

“It sounds horrible but I’m kind of used to him with skin cancer…it’s affected me more now because he just got done with it this past summer,” Lauren said. “He loves the outdoors, and he’s lived here (Colorado) for forty years now, which has a very high rate of melanoma.”

Born and raised in San Francisco, Tony would travel to southern California during the summers to spend the days on the beach, surfing and sailing. In that time, taking sun safety measures was no fad and was something that was never thought of twice.

The first signs of melanoma were found on his upper left shoulder, and over the years, subsequent check-ups would lead to the discovery of new tumors—many of which were found and removed from his face.

Having to constantly worry about whether the aggressive cancer will return or not is stressful for Lauren, and as a college student, she feels she sees too much abuse in sun exposure, which she contributes to the lack of knowledge and awareness of the deadly implications of skin damage caused by UVA and UVB rays. 

“[I see] lots of tanning outside, and paying for memberships to tanning salons…I also noticed how careless everyone is…from what I know what my dad did when he was younger, those trends just look bad now,” said Lauren about today’s growing trend to tan. “You can still have fun outside in the sun just be sure to wear your sun block and hats and limit your time, you don’t need to spend ten hours in the sun all day.  Get checked out every year and do self exams.” 

Not everybody is as lucky as Tony, as melanoma causes approximately 8,110 skin cancer deaths a year.  By 2010, it is estimated that 1 out of 50 people will be at risk of being diagnosed with melanoma, a huge increase in risk from 1940, when that number was only 1 out of 1,500 people. 

Melanoma is the sixth most common cancer in the United States, the fastest growing cancer at a rate of 3% a year and is the most common cancer found in men and women, ages 20-29.