The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Daughter feared worst three years after mum died from skin cancer
When Gillian Ranaldi’s mum died from melanoma in 2018, she never imagined she would receive the same diagnosis three years later.
After watching her mum’s journey with the illness, Gillian, from Perthshire, was terrified of what her own experience would be like.
Gillian’s mum Doreen was 66 when her melanoma – a cancer that begins in the cells that control the skin’s pigment – proved fatal.
“My mum had this funny looking mole,” said Gillian, 39. “She met a paramedic who told her she’d better get it checked.
“She brushed it off but I was really worried and told her she should do something about it.”
Doreen was diagnosed in 2016. “She got the shock of her life when she heard the result,” said Gillian.
“She started receiving radiotherapy, but they found out later that by that point the cancer had already spread.”
Her mum had been a keen hillwalker and had only been sunburnt five or six times in her life, which is why it came as such a shock.
Just two years after her mum’s death, Gillian’s world was again turned upside down when she found an unusual mark on her own skin.
“I used to work in Malaysia and in 2020, my little boy, MJ, and I were out there on holiday,” she said.
“I kept looking at my leg because there was a mark on it. It didn’t even look like a mole, it looked like a tiny pale pink freckle on my knee.
“When I went to the doctor, I was so nervous because it felt like I was going on the exact same journey as my mum.
“I was so stressed about it, I went to the appointment on the wrong day.
“I was told I could see the nurse specialist or come back and see the doctor but at that point I didn’t really care. I’d have seen the cleaner I was so desperate.”
While medics at first did not think the mark was worrying, it was removed to relieve Gillian’s anxiety.
But when a letter arrived asking her to come back in to discuss things, she knew something was wrong.
Unable to wait for her appointment, she was told over the phone she had melanoma.
Gillian admits: “I’m such a positive person. Every negative thing that’s happened in my life, I’ve always thought to myself, it will be OK if I can turn it into a positive. With mum’s cancer, it took me a while to think of something positive to come out of it. I suppose, it makes you realise how fragile life is.
“So for me to then receive the same diagnosis, it felt like a big slap in the face because I felt like I’d been through enough.”
Gillian’s melanoma was caught at an early stage and has been removed and she is monitored every three months.
The ordeal has had a significant impact on her mental health and she has been diagnosed with PTSD.
“December last year was one of my darkest times,” she said.
“I got a black marker pen, circled every single thing I wanted removed on my skin and went to hospital saying I wanted it all taken off.
“I stripped all my wallpaper in my living room because I couldn’t take my skin off, but I could take my wallpaper off.
“Mentally it really affected me. My brain was doing overtime thinking: ‘Am I going to die like my mum did?’”
She is now trying to help others avoid what she has gone through.
“Using just one sun bed increases your chance of melanoma by 20%,” she said.
“Before it happened to my mum and me, I thought skin cancer was a thing that happened to sun worshippers. I never ever imagined my mum would die of it.
“If you have a mole or another symptom of melanoma, please get it checked and be pushy. You have to take responsibility for your own health, because no one else will.”