I avoided the sun at all costs only to be told that I had skin cancer...
A MUM who spent years avoiding the sun has been left with a huge scar on her face after a scab turned out to be skin cancer.
Katy Flynn, from Harpurhey, ignored the pin prick-sized speck on the side of her nose for 12 months after it appeared overnight in December 2016.
The 31-year-old mentioned it to a GP during an appointment for something else. She claims she was told it was ‘nothing to worry about’, but did refer pictures of her face to dermatologists, who eventually prescribed a gel to clear abnormal cells in January 2018.
After months of failed treatments to clear up the scab, online banking assistant Katy went back to her GP and was eventually diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma – a form of skin cancer – this February.
Now she has been left with a fourinch scar across her face, where medics pulled down the skin from her forehead to cover the parts of her nose they had cut away - leaving her with an open forehead flap for four weeks to allow the flesh to grow back.
The brave mum, who is engaged to boyfriend, Chris, 33, has revealed she never told her two daughters – Miley, nine, and Abbie, five – she had cancer.
She said: “I’ve always been a shade-seeker, I avoid the sun at all costs. When I go on holiday I’m head to toe in factor 50 all the time.
“My friends laugh at me because they’ll all be laid out in the sun and I’ll be sat in the shade with my book.
“The only time I ever tried going on a sunbed was for a minute as a teenager and I hated it so I came straight off. I never thought this would happen to me, but it has made me realise that anyone can get skin cancer – whether you’re a sun seeker or not.”
For six months after first spotting the scab in December 2016, Katy ignored it completely before spending six months using moisturisers and creams to get rid of it, thinking it was eczema or a bacterial infection.
She was finally diagnosed her with solar keratosis, pre-cancerous sun damage which if left untreated could turn into skin cancer.
Medics booked Katy into the day surgery clinic at Salford Royal Hospital in September.
After the six hours of surgery, Katy was referred to The Christie Hospital in Manchester the same day for a facial reconstruction.
Katy said: I’m just lucky that it wasn’t life-threatening and I’m still here for my children and husband-to-be.”