Woman devastated as ‘super cute’ heart-shaped freckle turns out to be ‘highly agressive’ cancer
A young woman found out the cute freckle on her face was actually highly aggressive skin cancer.
KayIa Mailer, 32, is urging people to wear sunscreen, and for a good reason.
The stage manager from Portland, Oregon, used to have a tiny heart-shaped freckle on her left cheek from the age of 12. People often complimented her on her unique beauty mark, with some even thinking it was a tattoo.
But when Kayla turned 27, her freckle changed its color to a darker tone and lost its unique shape. Concerned about the sudden change, she went to her doctor, who referred her to a dermatologist. That’s when she got the terrible news it was actually a “highly aggressive” form of melanoma.
Kayla then had to undergo surgery where doctors “filleted” off her skin layer by layer until they are sure there was no more cancer. The operation left her with a massive hole in her face, forcing her to seek the help of a plastic surgeon to close the wound.
Kayla is now cancer-free and on a mission to warn people to wear sunscreen to avoid her unfortunate fate.
Speaking to Daily Mail, the stage manager stressed:
“If I hadn’t removed it, I would have died when I was 28-years-old. I didn’t tan a lot before the diagnosis, but when I was a kid I was running around Alabama, usually with no sunscreen, or at least not reapplied every two hours.
When I got the call from the dermatologist saying I had a highly aggressive form of melanoma I was getting ready to go to work a 12-hour night shift at the jail. I sobbed in my bathroom and [from then on] had constant anxiety about dying.”
Kayla said she was 26 when the mole turned into a “super cute” heart-shaped freckle. Shockingly, only a year later, “it had started to rapidly change and was no longer the perfect heart shape.”
She added:
“It went from being a medium-dark chocolate brown to brown-black and the heart had lost some of its shape. I went to my doctor concerned and he sent me a referral to a dermatologist in Yakima [Washington].
The doctor checked it out and said it ‘definitely looked suspicious.’ He said he would do a scrape test if I wanted but warned that it would remove the entire mark. I remember thinking that my heart-shaped freckle was really cute – I got a lot of compliments on it and even people asking me if it was a tattoo.
I agreed to the scrape in case it turned out to be something more sinister, it changed quickly enough at the end to make me worried. He numbed my face and then used a small razor to scrape off the color, which he then sent to the lab.”
When Kayla heard her freckle was cancerous, she was completely devastated.
The young woman shared:
“I was getting ready to go to work the night shift at 5.10pm when the dermatologist rang. He told me that he usually wanted to schedule an appointment to go over results but that it couldn’t wait.
He told me I had a ‘highly aggressive’ form of melanoma, that he’d scheduled me for the first available appointment at the surgery center in Seattle and that I’d need plastic surgery too. I sobbed when he told me…
I was prepped for surgery and the next thing I knew I woke up with a railroad of stitches in my face. Mom was napping on the side of the bed, a true angel, she never left my side even though she was exhausted.”
Ever since her surgery, Kayla has her skin checked every six months.
In the last few years, the stage manager has subsequently had freckles removed from her back, neck, right arm, and two on her face as a precaution. She is now urging people to always wear sunscreen and reapply it every two hours.
“I would advise people to wear sunscreen – reapply every two hours – and/or wear protective clothing. Get suspicious things checked by a professional. Live a life you love, and love the life you live.”
