Mum has skin cancer removed from face after not wearing enough sunscreen as a child

SWNS

A mum says she was left looking like a "character from a zombie movie" after having skin cancer removed under her eye.  Sarah Trushell, 38, was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma - the most common form of skin cancer - on June 28, 2023.  Her dermatologist warned she likely developed it after growing up in sunny Bermuda and Cyprus - while not wearing strong enough suncream.   She had surgery under her right eye to remove the cancer - leaving her with a 3in scar along her cheek.   The surgeon managed to remove the cancer cells "in one go" - leaving her cancer-free without needing further treatment.  Doctors haven’t said how long the scar will take to heal and Sarah is having to learn to embrace her new face in the meantime.

Transcript

00:00 So just for a quick back story, for the past few years I've had a little lesion on my face

00:06 and it started out ever so tiny. It kind of almost started out like this, although they're happy this is fine at the moment.

00:12 Just under my eye and it changed and changed and I'll add a photo here.

00:17 I obviously, because it was changing, I went to my GP to have it checked out.

00:26 And they also checked out one on my collarbone and I'll add in a photo of that quickly too.

00:31 And the GP said that they were pretty sure it was a type of skin cancer called basal cell

00:43 carcinoma, which is a very slow growing. Now because they had on file obviously my husband's situation

00:49 with his stage 4 cancer and that you know we were very worried, they were very good at reassuring

00:57 me that it was slow growing. They weren't hugely concerned but they were going to refer me to

01:05 dermatology and see what they said. So off I went to the RVI, a pretty long waiting list but actually

01:14 because of, I'm pretty sure because of Ian's situation, what I did is I sent in some photos

01:18 and they saw me fairly quickly. And they took a look and they confirmed that yes basal cell

01:27 carcinoma and they said that for this one because of how close it was to my eye they were going to

01:33 do something called the Mohs procedure. I'll put a link in the comments but I'll also take a quick

01:41 screenshot so you can see.

01:42 [Scenes from the Mohs procedure]

01:49 And for the one on my collarbone they would just cut around it because there's plenty of space,

01:56 it doesn't need any special surgery. And actually in the end they just ended up doing, like scraping

02:02 it basically, which has a slightly lower success rate but instead of being like 99% it's like 95%

02:11 and so it's no big deal. But anyway this is the result of a Mohs procedure. So it's a procedure

02:17 used for skin cancer but like I say it's basal cell carcinoma so it's low risk, it's not super

02:26 invasive, it's you know you cut it out and there's a chance it'll come back but you know nobody's

02:34 super worried about it. I lived in hot country as a child, I'm really fair-skinned, I also spent a

02:39 lot of time outdoors and they think that's why. So we're just going to be on slightly raised alert

02:46 for any of my moles that change or any skin lesions that change but otherwise that's what's

02:52 happened to me. So nothing untoward, I was supposed to have this done at the end of January but

02:58 Ian had chemo scheduled that day so we deferred it. It's an incredible procedure and if anybody's

03:06 got it coming up, I was petrified. I mean I'm a massive wuss anyway, I was petrified. The worst

03:11 bit is having local anaesthetic injected and they were so good and reassuring and then the second

03:18 worst bit was it being stitched up, not because it hurt but it just felt weird, that's all. And like

03:23 I say I'm a bit of a wuss so if something doesn't feel like if I, you know, it feels weird I don't

03:29 react super well but they were brilliant with me and even with me being a massive wuss it was still

03:33 absolutely fine.

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