Maria Papanikolaou
January 20, 1961 - July 12, 2006 

Maria Papanikolaou was an amazing woman.  Married at 20, she moved from Cyprus to New York to begin the next step of her life. As a restaurant owner with her husband, she was working all hours of the day while raising her three daughters. There wasn't anything she couldn't do.  Her smile brought happiness to everyone around her. She cherished life and held everyone around her close to her heart.
 
She was diagnosed with malignant melanoma in Sept. 2001.  A mole on her thigh was removed and a biopsy confirmed she had Stage III melanoma. She tried every single therapy in the book and went through a number of surgeries as well as a couple of clinical trials. However there wasn't anything that seemed to work the way it should have. Although she was going through so much all these years, she remained a strong women. Not once did her weakness and pain overcome her. Her experience has given us the knowledge of what melanoma really is and how cautious we must be with ourselves now.
 
She was an amazing wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt and friend. Although she is not with us physically, we know she will always be with us in spirit. 

Harvey Goldberg
October 19, 1956 - October 3, 1999

Harvey was 34 when, at the beach, his friend pointed out a suspicious looking mole on his back.  A visit to the dermatologist confirmed melanoma, and surgery followed.  Although given a scare, Harvey thought he had escaped the cancer.  He continued enjoying life, his kids, and his work as a partner in a Manhattan CPA firm.  He and his wife, Lisa, even went on to have a third child.

In early 1997, a couple of months past his 40th birthday, he felt a lump under his arm.  The melanoma had traveled to his lymph nodes.  Surgery followed, as did a full year of interferon injections.  Unfortunately, although his body seemed clear, the melanoma had traveled to his brain.  Doctors treated Harvey aggressively.  He wanted to live more than anything, and seemed very strong.  He endured gamma-knife radiation, brain surgeries, and whole brain radiation.  At the end, chemotherapy was tried, with no success.

Harvey died at home on October 3, 1999.  He left a wife, and 3 children aged 6, 9, and 12.  His children were his pride and joy.  As his sister, I miss him terribly.  When we were kids we often thought about how old we would be in the millennium year.  Harvey never made it.  He did spend a lot of time in the sun as a child and teen, and he paid for that with his life.  I hope that people will learn from all those that have died so young, and protect themselves and their children from the sun.