A woman from Leeds is emphasising the importance of receiving a second opinion when it comes to your health, after doctors removed a cancerous chunk of her nose - despite initially claiming it was 'just a spot'.
Back in 2020, a strange-shaped blemish suddenly appeared on the acne-prone skin of mother-of-one, Sarah Jones.
"I've always had really bad skin but I had a little dry patch on the end of my nose that would bleed and just wouldn't heal. I couldn't cover it up with makeup," she later told press.
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After the facial mark remained firmly in position for several weeks and didn't appear to heal, the Slimming World consultant had a phone-call with her local GP - being that this was during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and her surgery weren't doing face-to-face appointments.
During the telephone consultation, she was told that the blemish was a simply an 'infected spot'.
"I didn't think anything of it but then during lockdown, it would scab up then bleed, and then it would disappear then it would come back," Sarah explained.
For this, 52-year-old Sarah was given a course of antibiotics.
Despite taking her prescribed medication for several weeks, however, the suspicious blemish failed to alter in any way, shape or form, leaving Sarah utterly baffled.
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It was only until her routine dental appointment almost a year later that her dentist voiced his concerns, pointing out that the mark on her nose was reminiscent of skin cancer.
"Dentists see your face close up and they're trained to look at things. At the time my dentist was doing video calls with the doctor and they said straight away we think it's skin cancer," she explained.
"I was horrified. I sat there and cried. You start thinking 'am I going to die?'. You just start thinking about the worst-case scenarios. It's really scary when you hear the words 'cancer'," she confessed.
Shaken by her dentist's assessment, Sarah booked a follow-up appointment with her doctors, only to have her worst fears realised: she'd been misdiagnosed, and was suffering with facial cancer.
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Thankfully, the Swarcliffe-local - who has since admitted to using tanning beds 'two or three times a week' in her younger years - was referred to Chapel Allerton Hospital for surgery to undergo the removal of a colossal chunk of her nose.
Sadly, however, being that she was diagnosed later than she should have been, doctors were forced to remove more than they'd initially expected, leaving Sarah with a three centimetre dent in her face, permanently changing her appearance.
Now, Sarah is using her devastating experience as a means of raising awareness of both the importance of persisting with medics if you believe you've been misdiagnosed, and the risks of tanning beds.
The natural-born red-head explained: "Being ginger I've always used skin protection. But I did use skin beds in my late 20s and early 30s.
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"I went on about twice a week for two or three years. I liked the way I looked with a tan. And they helped clear up my skin.
"I used to go on a couple of times a week but I followed what I thought was safe. But looking at research now, even one sun-bed can double your chance of getting skin cancer.
"And it's something which is completely preventable. I hadn't used sun-beds for 20 years."
Thankfully, Sarah was given the all-clear following the procedure, but says she finds the 'visible dent' she sees when looking in the mirror difficult to process.
"It's very misshapen," she reveals. "The actual place they took it from wasn't that big, it was just the scar afterwards. And the scar came open and we had to wait for it to heal.
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"My nose is a completely different shape and it changes how your face looks. I don't recognise myself when I look in the mirror. I'm very mindful of it.
"I am self-conscious of people looking at it. Even when we didn't need to wear facemasks, I kept it on because I was very aware of it."
She went on: "I feel a lot of regret for going on the sunbeds. I would never let my daughter go on them. I wish I had never gone on them now.
"Now I'm constantly worried if something is an age spot or cancer. It's changed my life. Cancers can come back."
Featured Image Credit: Kennedy News MediaTopics: Beauty, Health, News, UK News, Mental Health