I’m a 43-year-old mom with terminal cancer — this is the fatal mistake I made in my 20s
A mom-of-three diagnosed with stage four skin cancer is urging youngsters not to make the same mistake that she did in her twenties.
Claire Turner, 43 was diagnosed with the cutaneous malignant melanoma in January, learning that the disease had spread to her liver, thighs, lymph nodes and shoulders.
“I did use sun beds and I’ve been burned in the sun striving for a tan,” Turner, who hails from Oxfordshire, England told Kennedy News.
The Brit says she’s now making it her mission for people to be aware of the dangers of sun beds and other forms of UV exposure.
“Sun damage has caused my cancer, it could have been avoided,” she declared. “It’s about protection and taking care of your skin before anything appears. Fake tan doesn’t last and real tan doesn’t last but which one’s safer?”
Turner says she first sought medical treatment after experiencing pain in her right shoulder last December.
Doctors initially believed it to be a torn ligament but the accountant became concerned weeks later when she noticed a slight swelling on her shoulder blade.
After having an MRI scan, Turner was referred to a sarcoma unit and faced an agonizing wait over Christmas waiting for a diagnosis.
“It was awful, it was just horrendous, I was expecting the worst,” she recalled. “I went down Google rabbit holes. It’s the worst thing you can do when you’ve got a potential diagnosis hanging over you. I was in the depths of despair.”
Sadly, Turner’s worst fears were confirmed. She had cancer — and it was advanced.
“I was just winded. It threw me sideways, I was just shocked,” she emotionally declared. “I came away knowing it was stage four.”
The mom was given three rounds of immunotherapy to shrink her tumors but was forced to stop in August after it caused inflammation to her pituitary gland and optic nerve.
A scan that same month revealed that some of the spread had spread to her lungs.
“I was leased I hadn’t found that out earlier,” she declared. “I think if I’d known I instantly wouldn’t have been able to breathe but that would’ve been panic and anxiety rather than cancer.”
While treatments have slowed the spread and even caused some of her tumors to disappear, Turner is taking each day as it comes.
And despite the uncertainty, she’s still managing to enjoy some sunshine — with precaution.
“I still sit in the sun but I’ll sit in the shade,” she said, urging others to cover up. “I’ll wear a hat or I won’t have bare shoulders. It’s just about knowing.”
