The Online Reflector

University of Indianapolis music students created an organization called Power of Positive to help provide a support system for their friend Mindy Owens, a junior music education major who has melanoma.

According to the Skin Cancer Foundation’s website, “melanoma is the most common form of cancer for young adults 25-29 years old and the second most common form of cancer for young people 15-29 years old.”

Owens is a person who falls into that second mentioned age range.

“My senior year of high school I found a spot on my shoulder that started hurting,” Owens said.

After the spot grew into a bulging and discolored mole, a dermatologist removed it and sent it to a lab for testing.

“When I met with them [the doctors] again, they said that I had melanoma which is the only kind of skin cancer that can [move throughout] your body,” she said.

Following tests and scans, Owens underwent surgery to remove portions of the skin on her shoulder and several lymph nodes that might have been affected. The excised nodes showed no signs of melanoma.

“The summer of 2011 I felt a swollen lymph node under that same arm pit,” Owens said.

After it developed pain similar to that of her shoulder, a biopsy of the node showed the presence of melanoma.

In the fall, another surgery was conducted to determine whether the cancer had metastasized, or moved to a different part of her body. Owens said several lymph nodes and scar tissue tested positive for melanoma. Following rounds of radiation treatment, scans showed no cancer, and Owens prepared to begin an interferon regimen in an attempt to limit cancer growth.

“I was getting ready to take that when over Christmas break I started having pains in my back, in my shoulders, and in my hips,” Owens said. “So they scanned me again, and they found that the cancer had gotten into my bones. At this point now, I have cancer in my spine, in my ribs, in my left shoulder and in my hips. This means I have Stage IV cancer, which is the last stage.”

Owens said she was offered the option of undergoing a month-long treatment under development involving interleukin-2 (IL-2), a drug designed to treat melanomas and being researched for “use against some leukemias, lymphomas and other cancers, as well as some other diseases,” according to Cancer.org.

“It was the second or the third week in when Mindy gathered the music department and told us the news,” said Karen Evans, a junior piano performance major. As a member of Kathleen Hacker’s Professional Development Workshop, Evans and her seven classmates wanted to focus on their ailing classmate’s story.

“The Music Department is very close knit,” said Bethany Walters, a junior violin performance major and member of Hacker’s course.

“The next day we went to class, and we all wanted to do something about it,” Evans said. “We didn’t want to let the cancer take over her life and our lives. We just started thinking out loud, ‘What can we do?’”

Owens took a month off from classes early in the semester to undergo IL-2 treatment, which, according to her, had an 8 percent chance to put her cancer into remission.

“We were still reeling from it—that a good friend was going to the be facing a really hard semester,” Evans said. “We came together with what we have now—the Power of Positive.”

The group project derived its name from Owens’ focus on the positives. According to Evans, they drew upon the correlation between the 8 percent chance of her remission and the eight members of the group.

“She continued to beam the entire time [she told the department about her cancer] and was so positive about the whole thing,” Walters said. “You could just tell that she had come to terms with it, and she was going to use her struggles to share with other people.”

Power of Positive, which has a Facebook page and blog, is designed “to share the power of positivity as an antidote to the struggles we face in our daily lives,” according to the “About” section of its Facebook page.

The group aims to spread awareness of melanoma and its effects upon people of all ages.

“You don’t normally hear about people my age getting terminal cancer,” Owens said.

To this end, the group will hold a Final Celebration Concert on Sunday, April 22. The event will feature original musical performances from its eight members, as well as an appearance by Owens herself.

Through all of her trials, Owens has remained positive.

“I just don’t understand the purpose of being mad or upset,” she said. “I’m happy because I have so many things I love about my life.”