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Jade Thrasher, 26, began using tanning beds when she was just 13 years old. She went religiously – three times a week, 20 minutes each session.
This wasn’t an unusual practice. In Nashville, Tennessee where Thrasher lived, “there was so much pressure to be tanned,” and Thrasher’s own parents even owned a tanning bed at home. It was all too commonplace for people to be tanning.
And so, Thrasher continued to go tanning for the next decade, particularly once Thrasher got engaged in 2010 when she was about 20.
“I would spend 20 minutes on the sunbed six or seven times a week, because I wanted a tan for the wedding,” she recalled.
After the ceremony, Thrasher – much like her parents – invested in a tanning bed at home, which she used twice a week.
About four years later, in 2014, Thrasher began to notice her skin developing wrinkles. A more concentrated spot, a clear sore began to form on her nose.
Overnight, she was often unconsciously scratch it, causing it to pop and bleed – but fail to heal over in due time.
That was when Thrasher finally realized that the sore was the symptom of a larger underlying problem.
She went to the doctor to get the spot checked out, and after a series of biopsies, she was given the news: Thrasher had developed skin cancer from her excessive use of tanning beds.
Her doctors wanted to operate immediately to remove the cancerous region of her nose, leaving a raw hole the size of a small coin near the tip.
The scar has since been covered and concealed – but doctors had to use a skin graft from Thrasher’s chest, leaving her a six-inch scar near her shoulder.
Thankfully, Thrasher has now made a full recovery from her disease and is now taking the time to share her horrifying photos in hopes of convincing teenagers to not make the same mistakes she did.
“I want teenagers to see the photo of the hole in my nose so that they know what could happen,” she said. “I've thrown [my sunbed] in the trash. I didn't want to sell it, because I didn't want anybody else to go through what I went through.”
