I went for a sunbed after getting mole checked for skin cancer
Emma would compete with pals to get the brownest look
Emma Buchan, 34, started using sunbeds when she was 18 for around five times a week for up to 12 minutes a session.
She would even compete with her friends to see who could achieve the deepest tan.
The mother-of-one told how her husband Craig noticed a lumpy mole on her thigh 10 years ago but she ignored it and kept using sunbeds.
But just before Emma’s 30th birthday, worried Craig, 45, made an appointment for her to see a doctor about the mole which had kept getting bigger.
The HR manager was in “total shock” when she was eventually diagnosed with stage 1A melanoma.
She was left racked with guilt that should we leave her daughter India-Rose, nine, without a mum. After having the mole removed and months of anguish Emma now has to have regular checks to make sure the cancer hasn’t returned.
Emma, from Edinburgh, is now speaking out about the dangers of sunbeds.
She said: “I started using sunbeds at a time when a tan became the fashion and everybody else was doing it and said that having a tan made you look better basically.
“When I became a teenager the goal was to get a tan on holiday. I used to be that person out of all my friends that tanned quite easily.
“Even with my friends we’d have competitions to see who could get the brownest on girls’ holidays. It’s madness now when you think back of all the danger you put yourself in. I was 100 per cent a tan addict.”
Emma is also warning sunbed users about the “it won’t happen to me mentality” and to make sure you check out the danger signs. She said: “My husband saved my life.
“Even right now if it wasn’t for him, I still wouldn’t have went to the doctor. I think I would have just been in denial. He first spotted it at night when we were in bed. He was just saying ‘you need to get that checked, it doesn’t look right’. “My reaction was total denial – ‘what are you talking about?’ thinking it just wouldn’t be anything. It was a good few years that he would constantly nag and I think that’s why he just made the appointment himself because he knew that I would never do it.” Emma had two procedures to remove the cancerous tissue around the mole which grew from the size of a five pence to a 20 pence.
She added: “The penny only dropped when the doctor said ‘you’ve got melanoma’, right to that second. At the time I was just petrified for my daughter.
“I don’t actually remember the conversation.
“All I heard was the word ‘cancer’ and then I just thought ‘my daughter.
“She’s not going to have a mum. What have I done?’”
Emma has created an online support group for those with melanoma which has over 130 members. She added: “I will never use sunbeds again. It’s not worth it.”
I was just petrified for my daughter EMMA ON BEING TOLD SHE HAD CANCER
HERO Craig, India-Rose and Emma