Skin Cancer - True Life Story

Journalist Cornelia Dobb knew about the dangers of tanning; she'd even done a feature on skin cancer, but she never really imagined it would affect her. Here she tells her story.

It looked like a beauty spot, perhaps a little blacker than its neighbours, but it certainly didn't look like a killer. My husband-to-be even thought it was sexy. It had been there for just over a year, although I had no recollection of when it first appeared. It was just there, suddenly, below my tummy button, where once there had been tanned, toned skin.

I think we know sometimes when there is something amiss with our bodies. My new mole looked harmless enough - it wasn't even particularly raised - but I would find myself staring at it in the bath wondering why that half centimetre of white skin should suddenly have turned so dark. I'd grab it between finger and thumb, and try to double myself over to get a closer look, but I wasn't worried enough to get it checked.

Shortly after its appearance, I went on holiday to Sydney, the world's skin cancer capital. Two out of three Australians develop skin cancer at some time in their lives. The state provides free sun block in schools. I was struck by how much more seriously they take the dangers of the sun Down Under than we seem to do in Britain, and while I was there I decided to do a radio feature for the BBC World Service (where I was working at the time) on skin cancer-awareness. If I hadn't, I would probably have stopped pondering on my new black blemish. Back home again, I consulted a GP who gave it a quick once-over and said just keep an eye on it and come back if it changes in any way.

It didn't change shape, size or colour, nor did it bleed or itch, so I put it to the back on my mind.

A year later, I was sitting chatting to my GP about malaria tablets. I was about to move to Cambodia for two years with my husband-to-be, a BBC correspondent. It was a hot summer's day and I sat cross-legged with one bare foot resting on the opposite thigh. 'Do you know you have moles on the soles of your feet?' she interrupted. She sounded alarmed. 'Yes', I said. 'I've had them for years. I've got them on the palms too, but they're not doing anything they shouldn't.'

She seemed satisfied that there was nothing to worry about, and returned to the more pressing matter of malaria, hepatitis, typhoid, Japanese encephalitis and rabies. Up against life-threatening diseases contracted from mosquitoes, bad water, pigs and mad dogs the sun didn't seem to pose much of a threat.

A couple of weeks later, I received a letter from that same GP. 'I've changed my mind about those moles,' it said. 'Given that you're about to move to the tropics, I'd definitely get them checked out.' With incredible efficiency, she had even booked me an appointment. I looked at the date: 4pm, 22 July 1994 - less than 24 hours before I was due to walk down the aisle in a Dorset church. I cancelled the appointment.

Bronzed and radiant, I returned from a blissful honeymoon in the Caribbean. Happy, smiling photos of me in bikinis, in shorts, on the back of a motorbike, floating in the pool, dozing under palm trees. It was to be my last holiday as a sun goddess.

My husband, Jonathan, left almost immediately for his new posting in Cambodia. I would join him when I had organised the letting of the house and packed everything up. There were so many loose ends to tie up; I had lists of things to do. At the bottom of my health checklist was (if I get time) to re-book that appointment at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital dermatology department.

Somehow, I did get time. I went along a couple of weeks before I was due to get on the plane to Cambodia. The consultant checked my feet and hands and told me not to worry about them: they looked perfectly harmless. Just as I thought. I was walking out of the door. I stopped and said, 'Just before you go, would you mind taking a look at this one on mu tummy? I've had it looked at a couple of times, but...'

The dermatologist told me to come back that afternoon to have it removed. It was not the response I had expected or wanted. It was inconvenient. Didn't she realise I had so much to do? I was used to the mole anyway, it was part of me now. I'd only wanted her to reassure me that it was OK, and now I had to hang around all day.

In a nearby cafe, I picked at a salad and slurped cappuccinos until it was time to go back. I felt annoyed that I was wasting time that I could have spent packing. Grumpily, I returned to the ward, was ushered into a treatment room and on to the bed. My tummy was numbed with a local anaesthetic and then a little eye-shaped patch was carved out of it and popped in a jar. The hole left behind required one stitch and that was it. They said they'd contact me if there was any problem with it, but if not, bon voyage! I didn't expect to hear from them again.

A week later, with packing boxes all around me and tenants due to move in any minute, there was a message on the answering machine. 'Miss Dobb, it's the Chelsea & Westminster here. I hope you haven't gone abroad yet. Could you contact us urgently, please?' Urgently. That meant bad news. I wasn't prepared for bad news. I had only been married for a month; we were just about to embark on a huge adventure together in Asia. My heart was pounding and my hands were trembling by the time I dialled the number.

The voice was matter-of-fact. Malignant melanoma.

I didn't hear anything else. A year earlier, before my visit to Australia, those two words wouldn't have filled me with such terror. But know I knew that they were the worst I could expect to hear. It was cancer; it was fast; it was uncontrollable and probably deadly. I had got it. Would I die? 'Someones looking after you,' said the voice on the other end of the phone. 'If you hadn't discovered this by now, it's unlikely that you would have made it back from Asia.'

Jonathan was on the other side of the planet. He had started his job in Cambodia at the height of a hostage crisis; Khmer Rouge guerrillas had kidnaped a Briton, an Australian and a Frenchman. He had no time to settle in or de-jet lag and he was working around the clock. I phoned him with the news. He was stunned and felt totally helpless because of the huge distance between us.

I returned to the dermatology ward the following morning. This time, I didn't resent the hanging around; I was brimming with gratitude that they had found this thing. I went to the same little room with the same kind Scottish nurse. There was much more anaesthetic this time, several injections, and the area they cut was broader and deeper. They needed to do a biopsy to see if the melanoma had spread downwards. I left with eight stitches where a week before there had been just one. I would have to wait ten days to know if the cancer had spread.

That night I went to bed feeling incredibly alone with my uncertainty and fear. I couldn't sleep. I sat bolt upright in the middle of the night, put the light on and started poring over every freckle, imagining that it was sending cancerous cells into my bloodstream. I recounted in my mind all those holidays to Spain, France and Greece in my teens and 20s, when the thing to do was to burn yourself for the first couple of days to get that golden tan going and then have it all peel off on the plane home. I'd been trekking in Thailand with no protection, arguing in my head that I wasn't lying on a beach, therefore I couldn't burn. I'd hitchhiked my way around Australia with a bottle of SPF4. It was all my fault. Had I been completely mad? Or was it just a total lack of awareness of the danger I was putting myself in?

Packing was out for the moment. I couldn't lift anything and if the biopsy showed the melanoma had spread, I wouldn't be going to the other side of the world anyway. I dragged myself into work at the BBC World Service newsroom to take my mind off the horrifically long wait. I'd hear Jonathan frantically filing reports on the hostage crisis. He sounded exhausted. I wished he could be with me. So did he, but he had only been out there ten days and couldn't possibly turn around and come back again. Thankfully, the BBC management saw the problem and ordered him back home to await the results with me.

I had been incredibly lucky. The melanoma was in situ, on the surface, and hadn't spread. I had been saved. It felt as though somebody, somewhere had been watching over me. I could so easily have not made it to the hospital. I could so easily have walked out the door without mentioning the mole on my stomach. I could have gone to Cambodia, still a sun worshipper, tanning and burning my way around Asia. I could have died.

Three years on, and I'm still a little paranoid about new moles appearing. I'll suddenly get fixated with one particular mole and it'll bother me for weeks until I get a specialist to check it out. I feel like I'm on a mission now when I see red bodies splayed out by a pool, roasting themselves in oil under the midday tropical sun. I have an overwhelming urge to tap them on the blistering shoulder and warn them, because, until three years ago, I was just like them.

I still love the feeling of sunshine on my face and I haven't quite managed to convince myself that pale is beautiful. But I know now that when I'm tanned, I might look and feel healthier for a couple of weeks, but in the long run, I'm actually risking my life.

Cornelia Dobb is a freelance journalist. She returned to London in May 1997 after a year in Cambodia and two in Thailand.