Wednesday, June 26, 2024
In the blog ‘Siéntete Admirable by Idoia Odriozola’, this Bilbao native who is passionate about life combines her craziest and fun side with her spiritual and reflective side. A lover of photography, a hobby he inherited from his father, and of fashion, which his mother instilled in him, in the last entry he puts aside the cheerful tone and attacks the ‘solar callus’, a dangerous viral trend on TikTok that promotes exposure to sun without protection to generate tolerance and resistance.
Idoia knows what she is talking about because genetic melanoma has forced her to undergo surgery seven times in the last year and a half. Precisely for this reason she considers it reckless that ‘influencers’ and celebrities such as Atlético de Madrid footballer Marcos Llorente encourage sunburns. «Humans, due to our little exposure and not being accustomed to solar radiation, are increasing the risk. But if you think that skin cancer appears because of the sun, you are the king of the ignorant,” he stressed. Odriozola warns that the skin is the “largest organ we have and the one we take the least care of” and calls for responsibility to dismantle these hoaxes that are so dangerous to health. The WHO predicts a 20% increase in deaths from melanoma by 2025.
«This is the first time that I am going to share with you my most intimate and personal side. Something inside me has told me that it is time to do it because I believe I can help and raise awareness among many people,” she begins to write on his popular blog. «The ‘solar callus’ consists of exposing yourself to the sun without sun protection and on a continuous basis so that the skin develops tolerance to the sun and ultraviolet radiation. Those who practice it declare that they have to burn their skin deeply so that their body resists solar radiation,” she details with amazement. «Tell you that ultraviolet rays, both UVA and UVB, can damage the skin and cause skin cancer. “There are no safe rays,” she warns.
Last year, he recalls, he was diagnosed with skin cancer, specifically melanoma, “less common than other types of skin cancers, but which causes the majority of deaths due to the speed with which it spreads to other vital organs, first to nearby lymph nodes and can also spread through the bloodstream,” he describes. “Tell you that if you detect it in time it will be cured, and here I am,” she reassures. «I had a birthmark on my abdomen and the truth is that it was difficult to control or visualize it because of the area in which it is located. I am a person with quite a few moles and I usually go for periodic check-ups to control them. But, coincidences of life, since the pandemic, with so many things that we had to suffer, I did not go to my dermatologist,” he accepts.
“I have to make an appointment with the dermatologist”
He spent the summer of 2022 on the beaches of Cádiz and said to himself “‘when I go up to Bilbao I have to make an appointment with the dermatologist to have it looked at’.” Not because I noticed any visual change. “I simply have had a very developed intuitive side and I am so spiritual that my inner voice told me that I had to look at it.”
To her surprise, it took her four months to request the appointment. “I guess the cancer cells were growing wildly,” she explains. Why did it take so long to go to the specialist? She takes care of her mother 24 hours a day, who faced two life-or-death operations after breaking her femur. When she was finally able to gather strength from the end of a “devastating” 2022, on January 8, 2023, her primary care doctor took a photo of that mole “that was so attractive next to my belly button.” By “teleconsultation” he sent her to the specialist. The next day she was given an appointment at the Basurto hospital.
Three doctors were waiting for her
“Talking among themselves, I thought ‘that’s great, they might take it away from me.’ They looked at me carefully, and when I asked them if they were going to remove it at that moment, they told me, ‘sit down, Idoia, you have a malignant tumor.’ “Just like that,” she says. He asked if they would do a biopsy, but they told him that “it was not necessary.” “The cancer cells were already visible,” they informed him.
Instead of breaking down, he found strength from no one knows where and said ‘Idoia, you’re awesome.’ «I knew that I was not going to die, without even knowing what was coming to me. In two and a half months I had surgery three times. In the first operation they named my malignant tumor: ‘melanoma’. Although they left free margins, they intervened again, I didn’t think that such a small mole could be so dangerous. “I went through 7 surgeries, since my body began to stir in the most sensitive areas.”
One of the things that has left the biggest impression on Idoia is thinking that she was going to have surgery for cancer and “it seemed like she was going to the hairdresser. When you are a caregiver you stop being ME and become YOU. There I understood that my mistress had saved my life. If she had left, I would have gone after her. Nothing is a coincidence, everything happens for a reason,” she concludes.
He was never aware that skin cancers also killed. «How wrong I was thinking that the skin was not so important, when it is the largest organ we have and the one with the greatest ease in spreading to the rest of the organs. I am a lifelong beach woman, although my melanoma is genetic (which I hope will not reproduce again), I suppose the sun has not helped me much. I have always taken it with caution but I have to confess that, although I have used sun factors with high protection, there have been many days when I have stayed in the dangerous hours of sun, just the ones we have to avoid, where ultraviolet rays penetrate even the better sunscreens,” he warns. “Who hasn’t done crazy things when they were young, sunbathing with those famous unprotected sun creams that made you tan in hours with coconut oil?” She asks herself.
The popular blogger remembers the death, at just 30 years old, of the ‘influencer’ Patricia Rite, with the same injury as hers, “in the abdomen and genetic.” «Not everyone has had the same luck as me. This evil has no age, that is why I want to give voice and make this disease visible.
Odriozola sends a message of hope – “skin cancer can be cured if it is detected in time” – and assures that the best possible prevention consists of responsible exposure to the sun, “avoiding prolonged sun exposure and during the middle of the day. Let’s also avoid artificial tanning booths,” she recommends while urging to stop the ‘solar callus’. “It’s a suicidal tendency,” she says, satisfied after being discharged. “Even though the check-ups are for life, I’m lucky that if it happens again they will catch it in time,” she confides. But it cannot handle people like Marcos Llorente and ‘influencers’ who appear on social networks to support empty and superficial theories without any scientific basis.