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Gemma Cottam was fifteen years old when she got a pimple on the side of her face.
She didn’t think anything of it, until it turned into a mole.
On her Facebook, she wrote:
“After having it checked with a dermatologist, I was told it was okay but could have it removed if I wanted to, being scared of how she said she would remove it, I quickly declined and forgot about it.”
But after ten years, the mole had only gotten bigger. She decided to have it removed.
She had it removed, which only took twenty minutes. But she had to wait for the biopsy to come back. Biopsies are done on all removed moles.
The result of the biopsy shocked and devastated Gemma. Her doctor delivered the bad news.
“He told me that the mole was cancerous and I had stage two melanoma but because of the size and thickness they had removed the mole, but my skin around it still needed to be removed too, as there was a 95 percent chance the cancer could be there too or if not quickly develop there.”
She would need three centimeters of skin removed from her face. A biopsy also had to be done on her lymph nodes, to find out whether the cancer had spread.
The cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. They had stage 3 cancer.
Now, she’s trying to help others by warning them not to dismiss suspicious moles.
“I don’t want to scare anyone by showing the scars, I want to show them what cancer can do. It is gruesome but that’s what I had to deal with and I just want to raise awareness that a tiny mole can be cancerous and people shouldn’t ignore them.”
She says that though she gets stares from strangers, she knows that her scars can help to educate others, and in doing so, she could save a life.
