Ladyhawke: ‘I didn’t know if I would live’
Ladyhawke was a proud new mum to a beautiful little girl when her perfect world came crashing down.
Cancer — in the form of melanoma — was a diagnosis the Kiwi muso, real name Pip Brown, did not expect and would shock her wife, actress Madeleine Sami, and their friends and family.
“I was so angry. I just couldn’t believe it,” she told the Weekend Herald. “I had just had this amazing little daughter and then this . . .
“I was angry at myself as well — I kept thinking: ‘I didn’t cover myself up properly at some point. What if I had got it checked earlier’?
“I was just kicking myself . . .”
The 39-year-old has shared more about her journey after being diagnosed with melanoma in August last year.
This week she spoke at the Cancer Care at a Crossroad Conference in Wellington, telling how she first spotted the mole at the back of a leg and knew she must see a doctor.
“I sort of notice things like that anyway and I couldn’t pinpoint, though, how long it had been there for,” she told the Weekend Herald in an exclusive interview.
“Some photographs I went through, it wasn’t there when I was a teenager. And then it kind of appeared in my mid-20s.”
When pregnant in 2017, she noticed the mole had begun to change, becoming raised, itchy and “weird-looking”. Her daughter, Billy Jean, was born in October that year.
“I got caught up in the craziness of having a newborn baby. But still, it was in the back of my mind, I’ve got
I think everyone’s kind of prone to it. It freaks me out to think about it. Ladyhawke, aka Pip Brown
this thing I need to get checked out.”
A mole map examination eventually showed it was possibly melanoma. A biopsy was done and she waited an “agonising” 10 days before the results came back to say she had invasive melanoma.
“At that point I didn’t even know if I was gonna live. I didn’t know if it had spread, how bad it was. It was just all a big question-mark.”
Brown had surgery and a large chunk of her leg, including a lymph node, was removed. The cancer had not spread and she got the all-clear.
Life these days, however, is about monitoring even the tiniest freckle and constantly being sun smart when out and about.
“Billy Jean, she’s always got a hat. When we go swimming . . . she’s covered head to toe in a rashie and with sunscreen. I just want it to be second nature for her when she goes to the beach . . .”
Brown felt compelled to speak publicly in the hope it would motivate others to get a mole map examination or be more careful in the sun.
It was important to remember New Zealand had the highest rate of skin cancer in the world, she said.
“I think everyone’s kind of prone to it. It freaks me out to think about it. If you’re worried about something or anything changes slightly, please get it checked.
“You can’t put it off. Life’s too precious.”