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🎵

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The melanoma on my face started when I had just lost a pregnancy.

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I was three months pregnant and I was 36 years old.

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I saw my GP and he said that it was pigmentation of pregnancy and not to worry about it.

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But then five months later I got pregnant again and I could see this growing and again

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I told him about it and again he said it was pigmentation of pregnancy.

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I woke up one morning and it had oozed, my skin had broken and my face was stuck to the

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pillow.

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So I realised that he was definitely wrong.

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I had worried that he was wrong but this confirmed my belief that this was not just

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normal pigmentation.

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When the diagnosis was confirmed that this was melanoma I felt very frightened.

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I was really worried that this tumour, some cells might pass to the baby because as I

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say I was six months pregnant.

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They then took quite a wide area of my face and they put a graft, a full thickness graft

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from my foot onto my face and then about six weeks later they took away all the lymphatic

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glands from behind my ear round to under my chin and from my back round to the front of

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my chest so I've got a big hole where I should have my sternomastoid muscle because it's

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gone.

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I prayed a great deal and persuaded God that I really needed to be here and I really think

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if I hadn't managed to have that pregnancy and had that child I think I would have succumbed

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to the cancer.

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I don't think I would have lived.

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Now I'm chairperson of the Melanoma Action and Support Group Scotland.

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We aim to liaise with the Scottish Parliament and to impress upon them the need for education,

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prevention and more research for treatment.

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I think once you've had a diagnosis of cancer it's almost as if you don't really trust your

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body anymore and your confidence in the things we take for granted about your own body and

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your own ability is quite shattered and it takes a long time for that to grow again.

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I wish more people would be aware of the dangers of the sun.