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Direct connection is made by NPT to serve all of our diverse communities and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you. Raising skin cancer awareness tonight the personal story of Miss Maryland and why she's putting the focus on this disease. To your call you made the direct connection with Jeff Slocum. Hi everybody thanks for tuning in for direct connection later in the program Dr. Bill Howard on two sports medicine topics how to stay safe in this heat and the latest athletic doping scandals. But first tonight Maryland's new representative to the Miss America Pageant and her fight against skin cancer. It's not just a platform for the competition it's been a life changing experience for 21 year old Brittany Leitz and Brittney elites the new Miss Marilyn joins us in the studio tonight. Congratulations. Thank you very much.

So the pageant the Miss Maryland pageant is in Hagerstown every year. What was that like for you. It's actually a very wonderful experience and a surprising one on same time because Hagerstown is actually a very very small community and everyone there always looks so forward in this Maryland pageant so. All of us girls who are pretty much you know no names around the state come to Hagerstown and everyone knows us by name and face that's wonderful. You know I've never been and I've never really read much about 24 girls from from each jurisdiction is actually how they have it set up is that it was twenty four girls from all over the state of Maryland competed in the Miss America organization in your state you have to compete in a local pageant to make it to the state level. Now those local pageants can be from each jurisdiction or they can just be a name that basically that local director makes up and uses to make that person a Miss Maryland contestant. Welcome back to the pageant stuff and Miss America but I want to ask about skin cancer which has been your platform and it's also been your personal experience and people think

it's a. It doesn't happen until middle age or older. You were 21 21. Yes it's very surprising how many people in the United States find that or think that skin cancer does not occur until older age. Unfortunately it's now the leading cause of death by cancer in the age group of 20 to 29. Skin cancer is on the rise and I was diagnosed with Stage 2 melanoma at the age of 20. My goodness that could be a bit of fun experience. What was their cause Do we know what happened. Well at the age of 17 I was getting ready for prom just like any other teenage girl is doing and just like any other teenager I wanted to be beautiful on prom night and my thoughts about beauty at that time were making sure that I was tan. I had a white prom dress and as you can see I'm very pale complected. So my thoughts were I'm going to start using the tanning beds was in a big sun worshiper growing up. And so that was my best way of getting a tan in a fast amount of time. I started using them for probably about eight minutes went up to about 25 minutes

after two years. How many times a week or a month. Probably about two to three times a week which seems like a lot. When I speak to most people but if you speak to someone who does use tanning beds they'll say that they use it that amount of time if not more. Would you look like we were I was really dark I do not. I look at pictures of myself from them and from then and I don't even recognize myself I was that dark. Does he is there a family history I don't know if it's that sort of thing where genetics makes a difference but do you think genetics played a role. I do not have anyone in my family my mother's on my father's side that ever had any cases of skin cancer and I'm saying that even of precancerous lesions nobody had squamous or basal cell which is the precancerous determinant of melanoma. There are some studies that they're doing right now that they're trying to detect a single gene in the DNA that would be that would relate to whether or not skin cancer is genetic. But right now it's just based on how much exposure you get how how was your case picked

up who saw it. Actually my mother saw it. I had a mole on my back it was about the size of a nickel and it pretty much looked like every single picture that you see of melanoma. They say they have melanoma mine looked like A B C D and E a symmetrical A is a symmetrical B is border C is color D is diameter and e they've just added evolution if it grows over time. So basically it was pretty funny looking and it was pretty funny and it had a strange border it was lopsided. It was big and it was growing so what happened that great so I had this big wall in my back which I never paid any attention to because when it's on my back and how many times do you actually find yourself looking in the mirror and checking out your backside. You don't. So my it's really the right. So my mom one day we were actually out on our boat. And my mom has looked at my back and said Was that a scab. I said no it's a mole I think and I just still never paid any attention to it she ended up taking a picture of it.

Took it to my dermatologist and my dermatologist called me and said You really need to make an appointment. I still really wasn't thinking that there was anything wrong and I didn't want to have a scar on my back from getting it removed. It wasn't until one day I scratched it and it began to bleed. I then knew that it really was a problem and I really needed to get it checked out. And I thought I know my big deal was to get it taken care of. I actually walked into the doctor's office and within two minutes literally the amount of time for me just to lift up the back of my shirt for my doctor to see it she scheduled me for surgery the next day. And that's not the Drive-Thru sort of operation right in the center for melanoma it's a big deal. Well I really didn't know what melanoma was when I was diagnosed and she pretty much diagnosed me before I even had my biopsy the day following. When I first met with her I had a biopsy takes about a week to two weeks for that biopsy to come back. She put a scab on mine which means it came back in two days. I got a call two days later telling me I had melanoma and I was first

diagnosed I was diagnosed with Stage 1. Stage 1 is great. We get it. We caught it. And you're good. Unfortunately when I went into surgery there was deeper amounts of tissue that were affected by the cancer cells and I ended up with stage two. With that I also ended up with lymph nodes having to be removed from underneath my right arm. Usually they do something called a sentinel node biopsy which is where they just take one or two lymph nodes out and check to see if there's any cancer cells located in the lymph nodes. With mine when they injected the radioactive dye they actually found that there were some hot spots. So they actually ended up taking seven or eight lymph nodes. And what's happened how long ago was that and what's happened just was on May 13th of 2005 it was actually a Friday. So I was very excited to go in on Friday 13th but my doctors were wonderful I went to Johns Hopkins Hospital My surgery was probably about five and a half hours long which is a pretty long surgery because they didn't end up finding that the cancer had spread more than originally thought.

Since then I've had about 25 surgeries various lesions all over my body. I've had a couple squamous cells never had another case of melanoma and never a case of basal cell carcinoma. So in your case if the see anything it's coming off. Yeah if they see anything now and that's on my part too as a patient it's very scary for me obviously never thought in my lifetime my name in cancer would ever be in the same sentence together so I'm trying to be as proactive as I can about my health and so every time I go in to get screened I make sure that if there is any. Think funny that I noticed or anything that I feel just uncomfortable about having on my body. I just make sure that they remove it. Oh yeah and remind our viewers if you have a question for Miss Maryland Brittany you can give us a call the number on the screen or send us an e-mail by visiting our website at NPT dot org. So this has become a mission for you. And there's an event coming up we ought to plug this weekend at the Baltimore Inner Harbor. Right it's going to be on August 4th and 5th which is this Thursday and Friday. And it's basically a free skin screening to anyone who wants to attend.

It is with the MTV which is basically an RV that goes around the country and we get free screenings to everyone. It's where it's sponsored by the Skin Cancer Foundation in partner with Dr. mental logic's whatsits a local pharmaceutical company out in New Jersey. We have volunteer dermatologists that come on board give free screenings. It's a good way to detect whether or not skin cancer is there. Anytime people hear free screening they're thinking some invasive thing and this is pretty simple right this is really simple all day. The dermatologist will check whatever area of your body you want. If you're uncomfortable with removing any part of your clothing they'll just check your arms and your face and the areas that are exposed. It's basically two to five minutes and all the dermatologist is doing is looking at your skin and you would tell me before the show that there was a similar screening you were involved in somewhere else that people who didn't know they had a problem. Right last week the van was in the Pentagon air and. The Arlington area at the Pentagon and actually in the morning on Friday we ended up finding five new

cases of melanoma. So it makes sense to get checked. It does make sense I highly recommend that anyone who has not been to a dermatologist in recent years or ever to receive a free screening that they do come out and support our cause and come out and get checked for themselves you know skin cancer is on the rise and you can't detect it unless you get checked. I haven't heard you talk much about the tanning beds yet. I mean is that is that part of you did you want to as much as you want to encourage people to get checked you want to discourage people from signing up for you know winter of the tanning salon. Right. My message to most teenagers because those are the ones who are using these tanning beds is to get away from them to not use them. There's no scientific evidence on my part that has proven my melanoma has come from the tanning beds but I was not a big sun worshipper before and now because of my use of them I now am dying of cancer. Why are you dying of cancer. I am melanoma is there is no cure for it. Right now they've cut everything out of me so to say that I am in

remission you know that that is the truth but unfortunately we never know if it will come back up. So I do say to people that you know I fight this every day. I've come down with other sicknesses because of my melanoma case originally I've come down with sign major sinus problems. I'm very tired almost like a mano feeling. So I am in a slight remission and my lymph nodes are still clean but it is a daily fight for it. Is it a fight that involves chemo radiation that sort of thing. I was actually one of the lucky few that had stage two and never had to go through chemo radiation. I am however on lots of medications to keep my immune system up to suppress the chronic sinusitis that I have been developing. But you know that's a medication that I have to take every day pretty much until they tell me I can't take it anymore. I got to tell you how incomparably city is to here. You know very difficult story that could happen to anybody from a beautiful young woman

wearing a crown on her head. Most people don't look at me and think cancer and I don't want people to think that because I want people to understand that it can happen to anyone. I was a teenager just like everyone else was and we all think that were invulnerable and immune to everything. We don't think anything's going to happen to us unfortunately skin cancer doesn't choose you because of genetics doesn't choose you because of race doesn't choose you because of gender it chooses you because you do nothing to prevent it from coming as a lot of people who want to talk to you. Let's take some calls Louisiana Howard County Louise thanks for the call go ahead. Yes hello. I just wanted to first of all commend Brittany for speaking out. This is a really important issue. As a teenager in the story that I used to bake myself stupid in the sun my husband used to do the same thing in California. But he said skin cancers removed most of generally suffer from skin cancer. I just heard him speak about chronic sinusitis. There's a side effect of the symptom

and I'm wondering I was terrible so I knew this and I was wondering if you could just expand a little tiny bit about that. Thanks for the call what is the connection. Well we aren't really sure what the connection is the connection that they are finding is that a lot of melanoma patients go into remission for a certain number of years and then they develop brain tumors. Now I'm not saying that my chronic sinusitis is a brain tumor but they do want to do surgery on it and a lot of times because you have a breathing tube in when they're doing surgery on certain parts of your body. You can develop some type of nasal clogging during your surgery. Mine they say could be related could not be related. The other thing is is that your immune system is way down when you have your lymph nodes removed. So in that case you know again it could be related it could not be. It's not to say that is not a side effect of melanoma though in just my case it has been a side effect. She she your life has been the proverbial rollercoaster. We went through all this and then a month ago now that you became Miss

Maryland it's just a month ago yesterday actually on July 1st that are actually a month ago today today is the first that I was crowned Miss Maryland. What are your thoughts about you go the Miss America you're going to be. Yeah that is one of the things that I'm still trying to get myself used to as you know you dream of going to miss America as a little girl. Everyone watches all the beauty pageants on television and it's always something that you never think are going to be able to get to and this year being the first year that I've actually competed in the Miss America program and being able to win the state title my first time around has been just an amazing experience. And there's an opportunity in that to talk about I guess you were this will be called your platform right and get the message out right in the Miss America program each contestant has to pick a platform some type of form that they want to go out and speak about and minor skin cancer awareness obviously being diagnosed with it myself. Well we will be rooting for you on that on a number of levels. Britney is pleasure media.

Thanks very much for coming in. Thank you very much for having me. All right coming up new doping scandals rocking track and field and cycling next on direct connection what this means for the weekend warrior. And some tips for outdoor activity in all of this heat. We'll be right back. Hello I'm Joe Christian city MPG. We want to know what's important to you and what you think about life in our community. We included a survey in the august members guide please take a few minutes and complete the survey so NPT you can better know and serve you. It's a credit survey isn't handy. You can visit the NPT dot org to complete the survey online. Thank you for your time and your valuable feedback. Radio personality and language enthusiasm Barry Farber has taught himself to speak over two dozen languages. Barry's learning system will teach you how you can quickly easily inexpensively and enjoyably learn any language on your own. Saturday morning at 9:30 on she

found a path to a better life every living being has the potential to awaken. Now she helps millions find their way. That does give you more clarity about what's going on with you. An ancient practice in a modern world. It's how we relate to the things that happen to us a call sets us to suffer. Bill Moyers on the reason Friday night at 9:00 on MP. And in the studio now as our old friend Dr. Bill Howard Medical Director of the Union Memorial Sports Medicine Clinic Dr. Bill good to see if your disease Yeah we have a lot of stuff to talk about and I was going to get to the heat issue second let's talk about it for a sort of in the context of you know Sun and people are familiar with sun stroke while we're in the news a very impressive young lady. In case anybody we know is going to be there in case anybody didn't notice. Well awfully impressed you bet. But you know you're outside a lot and young you don't have much hair covering your scalp so that you bring it up at it with unusual as well you

know I've had the same problem in the back here and got to where had me got to be careful with that stuff you know it's going to be a hundred degrees I think this coming week and if you can if you don't have to stay indoors stay in their conditioning stay in your car because heat is dangerous so heat stroke will kill you 10 percent of his strokes die if you don't have to get it. Don't go and he will do it. And you personally have have seen heat stroke or heat exhaustion. Close enough you can will. Yes and I'm going to tell you that the people who were in the heat are the athletes tennis players joggers even gophers and I was a runner and one August I went out in the heat. Hundred degrees so I went out at noon. Mistake number one. I ran for about eight miles around Loch Raven. Mistake number two to four. Got to the end saw Cedar Hill straight out so help me if I can do that. Mistake number three start up the hill gone

hard crampy said I can still do it another hundred yards se. I'm having heat exhaustion. I'm going to die on Cedar Hill. They don't leave me out of town so I stopped going over a plate in the first concert was going to die on this hill second concern was they're going to laugh again because I told them I am below right now here I am going to write a little stream that runs along by the hill. I was there for about an hour before had the strength enough to go back to my truck but that was that was smart move number one because and you're listening with water your water just a raw young funny smart move because you've got your temperature down you've got to do it quickly and you do it and that's an effective way of you know a bath tub at home is is just as effective and you got to drink fluids you really got to replace fluids because. You lose an awful lot without even knowing it just from the heat. You've got to replace fluids constantly and stay in cool places if you feel been checked out. Let's talk about warning signs because a lot of people have to be outside it's it's their it's their job it's going to be a who're degrees and

you know it's not just the people down at the Ravens training camp who are who are practicing it's people who work outdoors and get to work. So a little advice obviously you drink simpler words be care cautious the pitch of the morning so I mean who are you and what are we looking out for number one. You feel hot. You really feel hot this morning so number one then you might feel a little dizzy a little confused. Then you might start to cramp up when that happens. That's heat exhaustion and it's really time to stop because the next step is heat stroke. Me a reminder viewers have a question about the heat heat stroke and dealing with it. Give us a call the number on the screen or e-mail us by visiting NPT dot org so here's some questions when you when it's hot. Some people actually reach for a cold beer. Some people reach for again I mean some people will reach for a glass of water what do you vote for. It's cold. Good anything cold is good shouldn't be lukewarm. It should be

ice cold. It's better for you but alcohol has some issues. Beer is not really bad. I'm going to say one or two beers more than now we like to you one the last time you did that hydras I know you don't have to warm up anymore. We're stretched circumstantially was out of 10 years ago a cold beer beer is not bad but put a lot of alcohol. If you hydrate you a bit too much. Yeah something I remember from first aid training was sitting there one of the things that happens when you progress. I forget which way it is heat exhaustion up to heat stroke is you use stop perspiring. Sometimes you do sometimes you don't. It can go so quickly that the hitches overcomes your defenses and you can still sweat. So just because the guy's sweating I don't think he doesn't have heat stroke. His temperature can be a hundred 12 degrees maybe sweating. Let's talk about some of this doping stuff and we've talked over the years about why we have the 12 amphetamine steroids but the new one is the Tour de France champion Floyd Landis being alleged of having too much testosterone and he says he has a naturally

high level of testosterone. Well if that's the case how come two days earlier he was tested and they didn't discover his high level of testosterone has a naturally fluctuating. Oh I see. OK I could have gone to law school here also said Jack Daniels. Which is not bad for a Mennonite but he was in the jug Daniels as a cause. Not true. What would testosterone they were familiar with all this stuff they were in and we know steroids can help you quickly build muscle mass and yeah I still don't know what the B 12 was authorized to have done to the baseball players but they thought it did something because it's guys what with the testosterone you do and wouldn't work that fast you know. To tell you the truth I think he was set up. I really do think that I don't believe many conspiracies but it doesn't make any sense that one day negative the next day positive. Now these racers. It's a big business and they have huge teams and many

many of them use products to help their performance whether it's EPO stimulants testosterone. Right. And they have medical teams who know how to handle this. If they use it there's a way that it's not picked up. What they do is they measure testosterone against epi testosterone and should be about a 1 to 1 ratio. Well what's happy test. Well that's another type of testosterone which doesn't cause much trouble but it's in the body and that's how they measure it. No they will allow you to have up to a ratio of four to one testosterone over epitestosterone. They say because they could be in Floyd's high testosterone levels. Well a story. A source told me today that his came back 11 to 1. That's a lot. That's an awful lot. And with these teams they have there's no way. This team is going to allow him to shoot up enough the night before to get an 11 to 1.

See if he was set up he was set up but it wouldn't but people have been looking for some explanation of how in this very difficult stage of the race he zipped a header I don't follow it that close I guarantee there was just a superhuman performance in one leg of the race. You know it could not have been testosterone driving that you know the only thing to say was your windows is a little bit of an upright. He might have felt pretty good felt pretty strong felt ready to go makes you aggressive but it doesn't make you any stronger overnight. That just doesn't work the other stuff you mentioned before the EPO. Yeah that and that helps you sort of packing in red blood cells if your Does your body to create more. And I understand that and that was the that was the rap on Lance Armstrong wasn't it that he somehow had too many red blood cells. And that's hard to test for. Once you've used the EPO is used up and all you have is a high level red cells. So that's where the check growth hormone can check for that. So these are tough things to check. And I'm sure I'm not pointing at Lance but there are a lot of racers who use a lot of things but they're pretty

much controlled by their medical team. And for them to allow. This guy. Overnight they go from one to one or whatever to eleven to one. Didn't happen. Growth hormone can't be detected. Not yet would hurt a lot as they do for you. Bill's muscle makes you stronger makes the muscles bigger and better. Risks downsides to it. Well a lot of people think good growth hormone makes a lot of things grow and people who might have a little prostate cancer are just getting started. Growth hormone might make it grow rice who are throwing fuel on the fire or something that's just percolating out there. It's not natural and there was a guy got caught. Using it in baseball and he said well my testosterone I mean my growth hormone. Level is low. Well when you're an adult they're all low you don't grow anymore. We stop growing right so it's all well he and the other current Cates he is now I think I have the wrong name here. He was it was a sprinter right now

and you. Get one. Yeah. Is saying that it was also high testosterone and in that case the I think it was in the coach was blaming a disgruntled massage therapist using a lotion that contained testosterone that is possible. You've heard about the clear in the gel so that's a route of administration for test how silly rabbit. And if he rubbed it in. That could happen that could happen too. What do you think when when you look out at all this stuff. Sports medicine expert. I fully mean I look at it there's a spy versus spy thing going on I mean there's pretty good testing for steroids everybody's on human growth hormone. Eventually they'll test for that and that will be on to something else. What I want with this what's the next thing. What. Designer drugs they design things all the time. Stimulants especially which are hard. To us for we catch up to him. They move on the lot of good chemists out there. And if you're a good chemist enough you get money for it and write a lot of incentive to make a call will in Baltimore County Well thanks for the call go ahead.

From a Baltimore City but in any event my question how do you get on my question with my understanding it. It's been speculated that the testosterone may affect the recuperation recovery that enduring elites like Landis got him to dance. He's a doctor. Dr. Howard now I think that there could have been back let's say after a really grueling part of the day before great. Well good question thanks very much for the call us. Yeah. It helps you heal but not really overnight. It takes a little more time to heal completely it's not like healed. It takes a while. I mean it helped a little bit if you can. He got it yeah. So what about this for a second before we go in the context of high school athletes who are getting ready to suit up and start practicing you know and this is all they're reading about you know the various controversies and thinking that I maybe I can make the team or maybe I can get the scholarship and do a little something what what's the big risk.

Well and then the risk in young. Athletes who use it is mainly we know it's going to cause heart disease an artery disease down the road. To be honest if you use it very very briefly probably there's no great risk. But if you get caught you're out. And so that's a risk. It can cause liver disease kidney disease but mainly order is in the heart. I talked to Bill Howard from Union Memorial Dr. Bill good to see you again. We'll be back now all right let's forward to it Thursday on business connection at this time the business of organic foods plus behind the scenes at the big national harbor development in Prince George's County. Join us for that now for all of us here at NPT I'm Jeff softened. Thanks for watching direct connection. Have a good night. Direct connection is made by NPT to serve all of our diverse communities

and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you.