“I even had it checked out once by a general practitioner, and he told me I probably should see a plastic surgeon and get it removed,” says Uzzle, 33. “But I ignored it.”

By March 2000, that freckle had developed into full-blown melanoma, the deadliest of skin cancers that can be triggered by too much sun and long stays in tanning beds.

Melanoma had spread to Uzzle’s lymph nodes, creating a knot nearly the size of a ping-pong ball on the right side of her neck.

Uzzle was at Stage 3 of the disease. “At Stage 4, all they can do is make you comfortable,” says her husband Bryan.

She underwent surgery to remove the malignant tumor, then endured grueling interferon injections that left her depressed and “feeling like I had the flu all the time.”

The treatments worked. In March 2002, Uzzle was pronounced cancer-free.

She’s thankful but remains aggravated at herself. “If I’d gone earlier, I could’ve saved myself from all that,” she says. “But I’ve learned that’s usually the way it is with all melanoma patients. If they would just go get it checked ... ”

Melanoma.

The term doesn’t pack the same punch as lung cancer or lymphoma.

And it has a 95 percent curable rate if caught in the early stages.

It sounds mellow and easy to beat.

“Maybe we need to start saying ‘melanoma cancer’ to get people’s attention,” says Kenneth R. Barraza, a physician and plastic surgeon with The Face & Body Center in Flowood.

Uzzle’s husband, Bryan, admits he “felt relieved” when his wife’s diagnosis was melanoma.

“I didn’t really know what it meant, and it didn’t sound that bad,” he says. “But when I saw my mother break down crying, I knew something must be wrong.”

Bryan’s mother knew all about melanoma. It killed her mother.

Missy Berry, 33, a medical technologist at University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, also lost her mother, 51-year-old Susan Phillips, to melanoma in February.

“It all started with a little mole on her neck,” Berry says. “I remember she was combing her hair and hit the mole with a comb. It started bleeding, so she had it removed.”

That was in 1983. Twenty years later, a lump showed up in one of her breasts. The logical diagnosis was made: Breast cancer.

“But then she started having seizures,” Berry recalls.

A CAT scan in October revealed a brain tumor. Subsequent surgery proved that the tumors in her breast and head were both melanoma.

“Knots started popping up all over her,” Berry says. “She went down pretty fast.”

Uzzle and Phillips had one thing in common: Both were sunburned on numerous occasions.

I “got blistered a lot when I was a child,” Uzzle says. And prior to her diagnosis, the Uzzles were active boaters and jet skiers with friends.

“I’ll bet we sent 15 friends to get moles checked after Frances’ report came back,” Bryan Uzzle says. “I’ve sold the boat. No more jet ski. And I blind people when I wear shorts now I’m so white. If I never get another tan, it won’t bother me.”

Jerra Runnels was always easy to spot in her high school beauty pageants and on prom night.

“I was the one without the tan,” says Runnels, 30, who grew up in Collinsville, near Meridian.
A friend of the Runnels’ family had died of melanoma in his early 30s.

“The doctors said he basically burned his insides up in a tanning bed,” Runnels says. “So my mother would never let me near a tanning bed. I’m blonde-haired, blue-eyed with freckles. I don’t tan, I burn. At the time, I’d get really mad at my mom about it. But the older I get, the more I realize how stupid I was.

“My grandmother used to work in the fields, and the one thing I remember her telling me was ’Take care of your skin.’ ”

Now it’s her turn to be the protective one. Runnels’ 5-year-old daughter, Kennedy, plays softball. She’s easy to pick out, too.

“She’s the one who always smells like suntan lotion,” Runnels says, laughing. “The other parents kid me about it, but then they’re also always asking me to borrow suntan lotion.

“Kennedy is just like me – blonde and blue-eyed. So I won’t take any chances with her.”

One’s chances of getting melanoma, Barraza says, depends on several factors, including complexion and family history.

“If you’ve had a sibling or parent who’s had melanoma, you’re a much higher risk,” Barraza says. “If you’re fair-complected and burn after 15 minutes in the sun, you’re a prime candidate.

“Also, statistics show that any blistering sunburn, especially in children, sets you apart from the general population when it comes to melanoma risks. A majority of sun damage occurs before the age of 20.”

Tanning beds, Barraza says, “increases the risk of melanoma without question.”

Linda Tapley, manager of J-Lin Tanning & Figure in Ridgeland, doesn’t argue: “If you’re lily-white, you should probably never get in one.

“We know they’re not completely safe, but they’re better than the sun because it’s a controlled environment,” she says.

Bobby Fortenberry, owner of Bobby’s Tanning in Jackson, maintains that ?tanning beds are a whole lot safer than the sun – if you do it right.

“We found one guy who was going to three different tanning salons every week. You can’t do that kind of crap.”