A 26-year-old has a trendy beauty routine to thank for saving her life after she discovered a lump in her neck that turned out to be stage 4 melanoma.
Helen Bailey, a realtor from Alabama, was using a spatula-like tool to reduce inflammation in her face in a technique called gua sha when she rolled the device over a lump in her neck.
She immediately called her doctor.
It grew quickly, developing approximately from the size of a gumball into a plum. Little did she know, the lump was a warning sign of the 20 tumors that had invaded her body, all spawning from a cancerous mole on her back she had removed years prior.
But now it was back, and more aggressive than ever.
Ms Bailey, now 28, was diagnosed with stage four metastatic melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer with only a 22 percent chance of survival.
In order to treat her melanoma, doctors sent Helen Bailey through multiple surgeries to excise tumors and gave her immunotherapy, a rapidly developing field of cancer medicine.
Miss Bailey’s cancer spread from her skin to her lymph nodes, where it then spread to the rest of her body. She said she had a tumor on most of her organs.
What followed her diagnosis in spring 2022 was months of treatments that gave her 104-degree fevers nearly every day, uncontrollable shakes, 20 pounds of weight loss, rashes, loss of appetite, chronic pain and internal bleeding.
Ms Bailey wrote on her TikTok: ‘if I hadn’t gone to the doctor when I did, I definitely wouldn’t be here right now.’
Now, she’s urging young people to never ignore new moles and to schedule annual appointments with a dermatologist.
In addition to raising awareness of skin cancer, Ms Bailey urged her hundreds of thousands of TikTok viewers to wear sunscreen every day and avoid excess sun exposure.
She explained in a video: ‘I didn’t know much about skin cancer or anything… I feel like the more people that know, the more lives we could save.’
Melanoma is a disease of the cells that give skin its color, called melanocytes. When the DNA of the melanocyte becomes damaged – like from excessive sun exposure or severe sunburns – it can mutate, evolve into cancer and begin multiplying rapidly.
Thirty percent of melanoma cases starts in moles, but there are a small percentage of cases that can’t be traced back to one site. It’s possible, and common Cleveland Clinic doctors write, for the disease to start in unblemished parts of the skin.
Seven years before she was diagnosed, Ms Bailey had a cancerous mole removed from her back. Though removing the growth often works to prevent further cancer from developing, sometimes not all of the cancerous tissue is removes and it continues to spread undetected.
In Miss Baileys case, the cancer spread from her skin to her lymph nodes, she said on TikTok. From there, it used her lymphatic system to spread throughout her body.
Seven years before she was diagnosed with cancer from this lump, Ms Bailey had a cancerous mole taken out in the dermatologists office.
Miss Bailey was treated with surgery and immunotherapy. She is now in remission.
A stage 4 diagnosis of melanoma indicates the cancer has spread from its origin site to distant parts of the body, like the brain, liver or lungs.
It’s estimated one in 50 Americans will be diagnosed with melanoma at some point in their lives and roughly 100,640 are projected to be diagnosed with the disease in 2024, according to Melanoma Research Alliance.
The average age of diagnosis is 63 years old.
However, melanoma is one of the most common cancers in people under 30, and has been increasing ‘dramatically’ over the past three decades, according to Cleveland Clinic.
The Clinic said this could be because the ozone layer has thinned in areas due to climate change, letting more UV rays in, which mutate the skin.
Just a quarter of people diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma go on to live five years after their diagnosis, according to Melanoma Research Alliance.
Ms Bailey was told her odds she would live into the next year were ‘pretty slim,’ she shared on Instagram.
In her case, the melanoma in her mole grew into 20 tumors that had taken residence in or on most of the organs in her body.
Doctors operated on her ‘many’ times to remove the tumors and she was treated with immunotherapy – a newly developed treatment that engineers cells from a patient’s body to attack the cancer.
Her diagnosis is part of the reason she is passionate about spreading awareness today.
‘Early detection through regular skin checks and prompt medical attention are crucial for a better prognosis,’ she said.
It’s recommended to receive a full body skin check with a dermatologist once a year so doctors can identify suspicious moles and monitor them, or test them to see if they’re cancerous.
One of the most common tools dermatologists tell their patients to use for finding skin cancer is called the ABCDEs.
A is for asymmetry: Is the mole symmetrical all the way around? Melanomas are often uneven and have different sized and shaped halves.
B is for border: Does the mole have clear borders? Melanomas are more likely to have irregular or jagged edges.
C is for color: Is the color the same throughout the mole? Melanomas are more likely to have multiple shades.
D is for diameter: How big is the mole? Typically they should be the size of the end of a pencil and melanomas tend to be larger.
Lastly, E is for evolving: Has the mole changed over time? Most benign moles stay the same year-to-year, but melanomas can grow in size and shape and change colors over time.
Despite her initially grim prognosis, in February 2023, Ms Bailey was told her doctors could no longer detect signs of the cancer in her body.
She still gets regular scans every three months to stay vigilant. For now she, ‘will continue treatment to ensure all of the cancer is gone and stays that way. I still can’t believe that I was able to make it to this point.’
Source: Mail Online
