7 days ago
I ignored an easily-missed sign of deadly skin cancer - until my hairdresser flagged it...everyone should perform vital check
A mother-of-two has saluted her hairdresser for saving her life—after the stylist spotted a hidden sign of deadly melanoma skin cancer that would otherwise have been missed.
Michaela Peacock, 35, noticed a 10p-sized growth on her scalp while absent-mindedly rubbing her head while watching TV one evening late last year.
She asked her husband to take a look underneath her hair, and he confirmed it looked like a raised mole, which the pair assumed she developed in childhood.
But after a friend flagged the importance of keeping tabs on any changes, the aesthetics clinic owner texted her hairdresser a picture of the lesion, to ask if she'd noticed it.
'She said that it looked bigger and darker than when she last saw it, that's what made me go and get it checked,' said Ms Peacock.
'The fact my hairdresser could say that looks bigger meant it was changing, so she helped save my life.'
In early January, Ms Peacock visited her GP to get the mole checked, and the doctor immediately referred her to North West Anglia hospital in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, for specialist investigation.
'The mole was brown around the edges but really dark in the middle,' she said. 'It was the pigment in it that made the doctors worry.'
Michaela Peacock has credited her hairdresser for highlighting the change in a mole which triggered her diagnosis of deadly skin cancer
At the hospital, the mole was removed, biopsied and six weeks later identified as melanoma—the deadliest form of skin cancer.
If spotted at the earliest stages, almost 100 per cent of patients will survive for five years or more.
However if diagnosed at later stages, when the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, only around half of patients live for six years, according to Cancer Research UK.
'I was shocked when they said it was melanoma,' said Ms Peacock. 'My first thought was, "is this going to end up as a death sentence?"'.
'Melanoma caught early is very treatable and curable, but when you hear the word cancer you think of death.'
Ms Peacock has reflected on her teenage sunbathing habits in the aftermath of her diagnosis.
'When I was a teenager and young adult I never used to wear sun cream because I didn't like the feel of it,' she admitted.
'I'm very fair skinned and would never tan, so to get any hint of a tan I'd have to burn first and unfortunately in the past I've had some awful sunburn.
'The consultant said it only takes one time to have a blistering sunburn and melanoma can present itself 20 years later, so I think it's from years of not looking after my skin.'
Ms Peacock has since had subsequent biopsies taken of other moles on her stomach and inside her lip, which doctors suspect could be signs of further cancer.
While doctors removed the initial growth during the biopsy, she may need further procedures and treatment if the other lesions are determined to be cancerous.
'I don't think people think of skin cancer as anything that serious,' she said. 'I've even had people say 'it's only skin cancer'.
'What a stupid thing to say. Melanoma is deadly, it kills people.'
Ms Peacock said she's now 'terrified' to go outside in the sunshine.
'When you get a diagnosis of melanoma, you kind of feel you want to become a vampire,' she said. 'I wear SPF all the time now anyway and on sunny days I wear factor 50, a hat and sunglasses.
'I went to pick the kids up from school and even just walking across the playground to get to the shady bit I could feel the sun on my arms, it makes you so paranoid.
'I bang on to people all the time about wearing their SPF and not laying out in the sun.
'But how do you hit home with that message? I don't know how to do that unless you scare people, which is what my tactic is.'
Last year, data revealed that rates of the cancer in the UK have increased by almost a third in the space of a decade.
While the majority of the rise has been seen in older people, there has been a seven per cent increase in cases in people aged 25 to 49, according to the Cancer Research UK figures.
