A mother of three diagnosed with stage 4 skin cancer is urging young people not to make the same mistakes she made in her 20s.
Claire Turner, 43, was diagnosed with cutaneous melanoma in January and learned the disease had spread to her liver, thighs, lymph nodes and shoulder.
Turner, from Oxfordshire, England, told Kennedy News: “I’ve used sunbeds and I’ve even burned myself in the sun trying to get a tan.”
The Briton said he has now made it his mission to educate people about the dangers of sunbeds and other forms of UV exposure.
“Sun damage is the cause of my cancer, but it could have been avoided,” she asserted. “The key is to protect and care for your skin before anything shows up. Fake tans and real tans don’t last, but which is safer?”
Turner said she first sought treatment in December last year after feeling pain in her right shoulder.
Doctors initially thought it was a torn ligament, but a few weeks later the accountant became concerned when they noticed slight swelling in his shoulder blade.
After undergoing an MRI scan, Ms Turner was referred to the sarcoma unit and spent an agonizing Christmas over Christmas waiting for a diagnosis.
“It was terrible. It was really bad. I was expecting the worst,” she recalled. “I fell down the Google rabbit hole. That’s the worst thing you can do when you have a potential diagnosis. I was in the depths of despair.”
Sadly, Mr. Turner’s worst fears came true. She had cancer, but it was progressing.
“I just felt bad. It threw me to the side, I was just shocked,” she declared emotionally. “I came home knowing it was stage 4.”
The mother underwent three rounds of immunotherapy to try to shrink the tumor, but was forced to stop it in August because it caused inflammation in her pituitary gland and optic nerve.
Tests that same month revealed that some of the metastases had spread to his lungs.
“I didn’t know that before,” she declared. “If I had known, I would have been unable to breathe right away, but it would have been panic and anxiety instead of cancer.”
Treatment has slowed the spread and even caused some of the tumor to disappear, but Turner is struggling to get by.
And despite the uncertainty, she still manages to enjoy some sunshine while taking precautions.
“I still sit in the sun, but I sit in the shade,” she said, urging others to take cover. “You don’t wear a hat or bare shoulders. It’s just a matter of knowing.”
