Just after her 15 birthday, Sonya McGrory (37) started to use sunbeds for making her skin brown. Additionally, after ten years of exposing her skin with UV rays a grapefruit-sized tumor appeared on the girl’s leg…This tumor, which was removed after surgery and looked like a shark bite after all, was not the end…
“I remember that I started sunbathing from my early days, immediately after fifteenth birthday. My natural skin looks pale, but I believed that if I were brown and tanned, I would look better.” During this period, she had never used stronger than SPF2 sunscreen. Even when on holidays and spending hours on the beach, she was using only this poor security. “I liked to feel UV light touching my skin. After several hours spent sunbathing and already looking like a roasted chicken, I was very happy about my red skin which I believed suited to my red-brown colored hair.”
During her holidays in 1999, Sonya noticed hurting mole. Nevertheless, she still spent all her holidays sunbathing. After all, she went to see the doctors that quickly removed some suspicious moles. Unfortunately, further investigation revealed melanoma – the most difficult type of skin cancer.In 2000, doctors removed a grapefruit-sized tumor from her leg. Woman was going to start a chemotherapy course, but then she found out she was pregnant and refused starting it for the baby’s health. Until 2004, there were no signs of disease. However, doctors have additionally found and eliminated one malignant lump from her groin and another from her back. This means that cancer has traveled throughout her body.
Now Sonya’s blood does not show any signs of cancer, but she still fears that insidious disease may relapse again. According to her, recovering from cancer has been a very hard period to her and many time she has spent thinking about the death.
The woman who has been dependent on the sun for many years wants that her painful experience would be a good lesson to others. “I know that people think that tan looks healthy and sexy. However, this beauty is not worth all this pain that I have already felt. I think that everyone from their early days should be informed about the time which is allowed to be spent in the sun and protection which is needed. From now on, wherever I go, I make sure that my family is properly protected.”
Source: dailymail.co.uk