Good on you Deborah Hutton for highlighting your skin cancer battle.
This famous Australian model, TV presenter and editor of the Australian Women’s Weekly for a decade urged people this week on Instagram, magazines and the 9 Network’s A Current Affair, that she recently had to have a Basal Cell Carcinoma, cut out of her face.
She had the same skin cancer 9 years ago, and has been having regular skin checks since then.
Deborah was told this time around the cancer had spread.
It was her dermatologist who picked up the cancer ….. Deborah thought she just had 2 pimples!
Once under the knife, the 3 hour operation was brutal. Surgeons had to cut from the left side of her nose to her upper lip.
The biopsies showed 2 pernicious skin cancers and that the surgeons had just got it in time – left any longer and the cancer would have entered into her bloodstream….. the surgeons said she was very lucky.
The 58 year-old said she was lucky and wants to share her story with people and hopes by showing her face scars, it will highlight how dangerous it is to sunbake like she did when she was younger.
And by talking about her plight, people will have regular skin checks and stay out of the sun.
Well I listened to her – I have similar skin to Deborah’s – fair, light Irish/French skin and like Deborah I used to apply coconut oil to my face and body and sunbake until I was burnt.
So I went to my GP and explained the Deborah Hutton story and that I noticed 2 small red spots on my cheeks ( I thought I had eczema) and he said I had solar keratosis and prescribed a gel, Solaraze, which contains diclofenac sodium, and cost a woping $92…. and I have to apply it twice a day for 90 days!
He said I will experience redness and I’m to stay out of the sun.
Deborah like Olivia Newton-John, who publicised her breast cancer to encourage people to have regular breast examinations, is on a crusade to highlight how serious skin cancer is.
She said when she was first diagnosed with skin cancer 9 years ago,but she didn’t take it seriously.
She thought skin cancer was less scary than breast cancer, or cervical cancer or lung and brain cancer…..But as she discovered this time around she could have died from her melanoma.
So get checked everyone !!!
Jacqui's Jottings 