I found out I had cancer alone in a hospital holding my 10-day-old baby, whilst my husband held onto blissful ignorance for a few minutes longer. He was going through his own hellish battle trying to park our car at the Royal Free. I was 33 years old, and within 40 minutes of my diagnosis of melanoma, I was being prepared for my first surgery.
An incredible surgeon agreed to work through her lunch break to cut the cancer out of me immediately – such was the desperation and sleep-deprived exhaustion she could no doubt see written on my face. That was to be just the warm-up, as after staging it turned out I needed to go back in for secondary surgery, and a nuclear medicine exploration to see if the cancer had spread.
The day of my second surgery there was a 39-degree heatwave across the UK. My son was three months old and refused a bottle. I was going to be in theatre and recovery and therefore separated from my son for three hours, and no doctor could give me the reassurance I desperately needed that the nuclear medicine wouldn’t impact my breast milk.
So I was told it would be safest for me to avoid breastfeeding Louie for 24 hours. Those of you reading who have had bottle refusing children will understand what a panic inducing piece of guidance that was.
As a postpartum mum and cancer patient, I had come to the end of the medical research road – no one could give me definitive answers which felt vital for mine and my newborn’s safety, and it was utterly terrifying. I write this today having been fortunate enough to make a full recovery. But also forever changed by my diagnosis.
There is a haunting nature that comes from a skin cancer diagnosis. A trick your mind plays, that it must be lurking somewhere else beneath the skin – your whole body has had the same exposure as the removed part, a new life of hyper vigilance and paranoia. I only realised the impact this was having on me after my final skin check two years after diagnosis.
I crumbled in front of the doctor as she officially signed me out of treatment, realising I’d been holding my breath – waiting for melanoma to rear its hideous head elsewhere.
In an attempt to find some sense for all of this, I poured my time into a skin cancer awareness campaign. With the help of my incredible colleagues at Pablo, in May we launched an initiative called UV-U-SEE – calling on the construction sector to introduce a new standard in health and safety.
At the heart of it sits the “higher vis vest”, a high vis jacket with a reactive silicon UV-U-SEE logo on the breast pocket, which goes from white to intensely red in reaction to UV levels, to warn the wearer they are at risk of contracting melanoma without adequate skin protection.
We created this in reaction to a statistic that I found in treatment that in the UK, construction workers make up 8% of the workforce but represent 44% of occupational melanoma deaths. UV is an invisible killer that we are determined to make visible.
This project has been my therapy. It has brought me into contact with many incredible melanoma survivors within the construction sector, who have bravery spoken about their experiences to help educate, raise awareness, and prevent future deaths.
Without it, I wouldn’t have found that community, support or outlet – which must be the difficult norm for so many cancer patients across the UK. This is why I’m backing the Daily Express’s Cancer Care campaign to ensure patients receive mental healthcare both during and after their treatment.