Woman shares important message following stage four cancer diagnosis after her symptoms dismissed as anxiety
A woman from the UK has shared an important message after receiving a devastating stage four skin cancer diagnosis when she was 23.
One in five Americans will develop skin cancer before the age of 70, with 9,500 people in the US receiving the diagnosis each day, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation.
30-year-old Lily Murphy, from Watford, UK, said she'd used sunbeds less than 10 times before her diagnosis, having started to use them before going on a trip to Vietnam and Bali to 'start' her tan.
But upon her return - she noticed that something quite not right. In 2018, Lily saw a mole that had darkened and began to bleed; she was initially told by doctors it was nothing to worry about.
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This was before her trip to Southeast Asia, but concerns arose during the trip, so Lily decided to visit another healthcare professional for a second opinion.
"That's when the doctor said, 'This doesn't look right, I'm going to refer you on the two-week cancer pathway'," she said.
Lily, who works as an NHS administrative clerk, had the mole removed and was called back two weeks later, which is when she received her diagnosis.
"There were two Macmillan Cancer nurses in there too… that's when they said to me it's come back as melanoma, stage 1B," she added.
"I was shocked, I was devastated. But as there was a delay between the call and the appointment, by the time I saw the doctor, it had actually sunk in a bit."
According to Macmillan, stage 1 melanoma is the early stage of the condition, meaning it has not spread to other parts of the body and is generally treatable, which Lily was incredibly optimistic about.
After undergoing two surgeries in 2019, Lily was given the all-clear by healthcare professionals; however, in 2023, she began to feel unwell again.
"I was just constantly tired, and I couldn't understand why," Lily said. "The following weekend I worked overtime and had back pain, so I thought I'd sat uncomfortably or something.
"But then I woke up the next morning and had really bad chest pain and couldn't breathe, and said to my mum it feels like something's not right."
She said her symptoms were initially dismissed as anxiety, but she was eventually given scans and blood tests and was told she had stage 4 melanoma.
"They said we've found some masses in your lung and your neck," Lily recalled.
According to doctors, in some rare cases, melanoma can spread via blood and not turn up on the scans, which is what happened to her.
Thanks to new treatments, however, some people can live with stage four melanoma for a long time, as per Cancer Research UK, so Lily is expected to undergo lifelong treatment after the cancer spread to both her lungs and neck.
Lily is campaigning for sunbeds to be banned in the UK, with her petition, Ban Sun Beds to Protect Against Skin Cancer in the UK, garnering over 1,300 signatures so far.
"It was just a spur of the moment thing," she said. "Every day I'm getting biopsy requests where the patient has a history of using sunbeds. Sunbeds are a known cancer risk.
"Banning them would save lives – and save the NHS money."
Lily added that she's 'probably used sunbeds for less than an hour in total' and 'just going on a sunbed for six minutes can change your whole life'.
"If I could stop just one person using sunbeds to save them going through what I've been through, it will be a miracle." she said.
Callum Jones