First Came Fun in the Sun. Now, a Watch for Cancer.
By Lee Tolliver, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.
Jul. 28–Trick Standing is rummaging through the drawers on his Rudee Inlet charter boat, looking for pliers. He eventually finds a pair, but not before sifting through countless bottles, jars and tubes of sunscreen sprays and lotions.
The sunscreen stuff is everywhere on the Git-R-Done.
“Tools of the trade,” Standing says. “If you’re smart.”
Standing is a prime target for the sun’s ultraviolet rays — the ones that cause several kinds of skin cancer. His skin is fair and covered with freckles. His hair is red and thinning.
And if you look hard enough, you can see the scars.
“I’ve been cut on more than a buffet roast beef,” he says, a wry smile spreading across his face. “Probably more than 10 times. My neck and chest look like I’ve been hit with buckshot.
“I am a basal cell farm.”
Standing is a lifelong resident of Virginia Beach. In keeping with the city’s fun-in-the-sun culture, the 48-year-old surfed, worked as a beach lifeguard and played hard in the out-of-doors.
And he fished.
“Every chance I could. We grew up with it,” says Standing, a construction contractor who charters his boat for extra money and to meet his need for angling.
Standing’s mom first discovered a “curious”-looking spot on his back when he was in his mid-20s.
“Things just didn’t look right to her, so she made me go to the dermatologist,” he says. “They found a basal, and now I go for checkups every six months.
“Or if something doesn’t look right. You learn.”
Standing also has learned to take better care of his skin. He knows that, if unchecked, certain forms of cancer can spread to other organs and lymph nodes — sometimes with deadly results.
Reggae sensation Bob Marley died in 1981 after melanoma in his right big toe spread to his brain, lungs and stomach.
According to the American Cancer Society, about 7,000 Americans a year die from the most serious skin cancer — malignant melanoma. The society’s latest report says that 1 million skin cancer cases are diagnosed annually in the United States.
Working outdoors and being at the helm of a deep-sea sport fisher, Standing is constantly bombarded by the sun’s damaging rays.
Of even greater concern to Standing than his own well-being is the future of his two sons — Gunner, 11, and Peanut, 6. He has learned that the problems he is dealing with now are caused by sun he got when he was a youngster.
So he diligently tries to protect the two, who are following in his footsteps as a surfer and fisherman.
“The things that they’ve had to cut off me, they’re from sun 20, 30 years ago,” Standing says. “I can’t do anything about that now.
“But I can try my best to prevent further damage. And I can try to help the two of them not deal with what I am. My 50 SPF is on the console up top. Putting it on is my first morning ritual.” Usually before the sun has even peeked above the horizon.
Dr. Jose Acostamadiedo has given free skin cancer screenings to more than 3,000 anglers since he started “Catch Cancer… Before It’s Too Late” eight years ago.
The Nags Head hematologist has spent years studying people such as Standing.
“I decided that, with all the tournaments, I needed to do something about the skin cancer situation with offshore fishermen,” said Acostamadiedo, 43, himself an accomplished angler.
On the Outer Banks, Acostamadiedo has hundreds of boat captains and thousands of anglers to study. So he applied for and received a Community Development Grant from the American Cancer Society and started “Catch Cancer.”
He has performed free screenings at many of the top billfish tournaments on the East Coast.
“I have a mascot — Smarty Marlin — and the kids love him. I really am trying to teach the kids,” he said. “With skin cancer, it’s all about educating the kids and early detection for adults.”
Acostamadiedo has found that offshore anglers and captains are at an extremely high risk of skin cancer. During a trip, they are exposed to the sun in some way from dawn to dusk. When fishing and bookings are good, that can be seven days a week.
“I screened a lot of regular people, from all walks of life, for melanoma, and the rate was about 1 in 300,” he said. “When I centered my studies on offshore fishermen, the rate quadrupled, to 1 in 75. I found it mostly on their backs, especially the neck, the knees, calves and backs of hands.
“The bottom line is that if you offshore-fish all your life, you are in a high-risk category.”
Acostamadiedo said he concentrates most of his research on melanoma because of its deadly nature.
“Seventy-five percent of all skin cancers don’t kill you,” said Acostamadiedo, who emphasized that 85 percent of a person’s sun damage is done by the age of 18.
“But melanoma is very aggressive. It tries to get into other organs. And once that happens, the survival rate is very low.”
Bobby Holland Jr. is definitely one of those people paying for sunburns suffered decades earlier.
The Virginia Pilot Association captain, renowned East Coast surfer and avid snow skier survived a major skin cancer scare.
Several years ago he had to have his entire bottom lip removed.
“It was an ‘infiltrating squamous,’ ” Holland, 57, said of the type of cancer he had. “They said it was precancerous, but I was freaking when they told me.
“They cut off all of the bottom lip and re-formed that, and they had to cut a ‘V’ into my chin to take out a few places where it had spread.”
Like Standing, Holland knows that the damage was from long ago.
“I worked all day long on the beach when I was a kid,” he said. “We never had the new surf shirts or sunglasses. And no protection.
“I’d get burnt almost every day, just about, especially on my lip. It would blister and bleed.”
Holland also has a spot on his back where a cancer was cut out. Like many others who have had skin cancers removed, he has learned to take better care of himself while out in the sun.
“I have a very good relationship with my dermatologist,” he said.
“I was in the hospital for about five days for the lip. But I’ve been lucky and haven’t had any real problems since.
“And I’m very careful with my grandkids. They like to surf and be on the beach. I paste sunblock all over them all the time.”
Trick Standing is pasting Gunner and Peanut with lotion as they fidget inside the saloon of the Git-R-Done.
They both have the fair skin, freckles and red hair that Dad has. And like their father, they are spending lots of time in the sun. They’re not real keen on Dad’s ritual. But because of it, they aren’t as likely to get burned at their young age.
“Given my history, I’m pretty tough on my two kids,” Standing says as the two scurry around the fishing cockpit of the boat. “But it’s easier now. Things are different. When they go to the beach, they have on the long-sleeved rash guards (shirts), and they are covered in sunscreen.”
But Standing also is a realist. He understands that there are no guarantees.
“Unless you put them in a closet for 20 years,” he says, laughing.
Gunner looks up and nails his dad in the arm with a stiff left jab. He smirks: “Yeah, right!”
Lee Tolliver, (757) 222-5844, lee.tolliver@pilotonline.com
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Copyright (c) 2008, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.
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