As a kid, Nick loved playing all sports. He started playing T-ball at age 5, then moved right into baseball, soccer and basketball. In middle school, he found his true love of sports in the game of football. He was fortunate to play on his high school football team and even continued to play through part of his sophomore year of college.

 

With sports being such a major part of his life, Nick spent a lot of time outside. Like so many kids, he didn’t always think about sun protection. But his mom, Vicki, was always on top of it and put sunscreen in his gym bag with a reminder to use it. Even so, he still got sunburned a few times on the practice field.

 

In June of 2012, Nick was getting his usual cut – a buzz cut – when his barber mentioned that a mole above his right ear looked different. Nick’s dad (who had already gone through 3 melanoma surgeries himself) immediately made an appointment with a dermatologist.

 

The dermatologist removed the mole and immediately told Nick and his parents that it was melanoma. One month later, a separate surgery was performed to remove the sentinel lymph nodes. Due to the location and depth of removal, the melanoma was staged at 3B. This was devastating to Nick for many reasons, including the fact that this meant his days of playing football were over. To fulfill his love of the sport, Nick decided to volunteer in his neighborhood as a junior rec league football coach.

 

Months after his college graduation, Nick learned the melanoma had metastasized to his liver, pelvis, left femur, lungs and ribs. He began targeted therapy with Taflinar and Mekinist. Then, less a year later, in May 2016, Nick started seeing spots and experiencing awful headaches. He felt it was as if something was squeezing his brain. He would manage through the headaches, but he had to stop driving because of his compromised eyesight.

 

One evening in July, after a fun evening at an Orioles baseball game, Nick came home and headed straight to bed. He woke up the next day with a terrible headache, started vomiting and then had his first seizure. After a 2-day stay in the hospital, Nick was diagnosed with leptomeningeal cancer. He came off his medications and started on a combo immunotherapy, nivolumab/ipilimumab, while enduring 20 rounds of whole brain radiation.

 

Two months later, in September 2016, Nick collapsed on his way to the bathroom. In the ER, his family was told he had fluid on his brain and had a pulmonary embolism, a blot clot in his leg that had separated and lodged in the lungs. They performed 2 emergency operations – one was a mesh implant in his lungs for the embolism, and another was to place a ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt in his brain to drain the fluid. During the several days in the ICU, Nick lost control of certain abilities, and his family made the difficult decision to bring him home under hospice care. He passed away surrounded by family 12 weeks later, on November 29, 2016.

 

After learning about the leptomeningeal spread, Nick and Vicki discussed advocating and educating others about melanoma. Vicki made a promise to Nick that if he didn’t make it through this fight, she would try to help save others.

 

In 2017, Vicki began volunteering and advocating about the dangers of skin cancer. At that time, children needed a doctor’s note to carry and use sunscreen at school in many states, including Maryland. Vicki went to Annapolis, MD with a nonprofit called Kelly’s Dream to advocate for a sunscreen bill. Their pleas to the Senate and House made a difference and then Governor Larry Hogan signed the bill. No longer was a doctor’s note required for a child in grades K thru 12 to bring sunscreen in their backpacks to school and apply it.

 

Since volunteering with that organization, Vicki continues to honor Nick by raising awareness about melanoma and leptomeningeal cancer.