Rebecca has now had part of her lung removed and doctors say it is down to a mistake when she was younger
12:46, 18 Nov 2025Updated 12:49, 18 Nov 2025
Rebecca dismissed the red mark as ‘just a spot’ (Kennedy News and Media)
A mum who saw a red patch on her chest dismissed it as ‘just a spot’ until she was diagnosed with stage four cancer. Rebecca Turner, 46, says she initially thought the 1cm large lump was ‘just a spot’, but became increasingly concerned when it started going black, changing colour, and became itchy.
Rebecca says she was ‘devastated’ when she received the stage two skin cancer diagnosis in June 2022 and ‘thought she was going to die’. Rebecca was diagnosed with a nodular melanoma – an aggressive form of skin cancer.
After three surgeries to remove surrounding skin and lymph nodes, she was placed on ‘watch and wait’ – which meant that she had cancer, but that she didn’t need urgent treatment. Every three months, she returned to the hospital for a full body CT scan and full body skin check to ensure that there had been no further changes.
The red spot (Kennedy News and Media)
However the freelance healthcare trainer received the devastating news in July this year that the cancer was now stage four and had spread to her lungs. She admits that when she was in her 20s she very occasionally used sunbeds as it was the ‘done thing’, wrongly believing they ‘prepped your skin’ before holidays – and wants them banned.
The mum-of-one is now raising awareness about the potential severity of skin cancer and is warning others that it’s ‘not just skin cancer’ and isn’t something ‘that can just be cut out and cured’. Rebecca, from Barry, South Wales, said: “I noticed this pale patch of skin on the top upper part on the right side of my chest.
“It was circular and around 2.5cm in size. Then a right lump appeared [in it], which was no more than about 1cm. Initially I thought that it looked more like a spot but when parts of it started going black and then changing colour and it was itching and tingling, then it didn’t feel like a spot.
Rebecca has been told it was a mistake when she was younger (Kennedy News and Media)
“No matter how much I was trying to squeeze it, nothing was coming out. It wasn’t a mole. It wasn’t a usual presentation for melanoma.” Rebecca was ‘devastated’ when she received the diagnosis of stage two nodular melanoma – one of the most aggressive forms of skin cancer.
Rebecca said: “It was like I was watching it happen to someone else. I was devastated. As soon as I heard that word cancer I thought I was going to die – I thought it was going to be the end. That weekend was horrific. I spent most of the weekend crying, trying to hide my upset from my grown-up daughter.
“I was trying to make sure that she didn’t get too anxious and was telling her that they caught it early, it would be fine, but I was constantly crying behind closed doors.”
After surgery to remove the cancer in 2022, Rebecca found out that it had progressed to stage four in July 2025. Rebecca said: “After my surgery I was put on ‘watch and wait’. In January 2025 my CT scan came back as there being something suspicious – a metastasis in my right lung.
“In July they discovered that the lump wasn’t stable and had tripled in size in that time frame. That’s when they confirmed that it was stage four metastatic melanoma.”
Rebecca has been diagnosed with stage four cancer (Kennedy News and Media)
Last month, Rebecca had the tumour removed along with a section of her right lung and is waiting to start immunotherapy treatment in a few weeks’ time. Rebecca believes that skin cancer is often ‘misunderstood’ and too many people think that it’s ‘just something which can be cut out and cured’.
Rebecca said: “I think that a lot of people don’t understand melanoma, they just think that it’s a case of they cut it out and it’s gone, when that’s not the case at all. I’m a melanoma support group and all of us have had people say things to us like ‘if I was going to get a cancer, melanoma would be the one that I would want because you just cut it out and it’s done’.
“But it’s not. No cancer is just you cut it out and it’s done. It’s not as if people think this out of malice – I think it’s a lack of awareness and education.”
Rebecca says that after speaking with clinicians, it is likely that her skin cancer developed as a result of her not wearing suncream as a child. She is now warning other people of the importance of wearing SPF 30 and above in the sun and is calling for sunbeds to be made illegal.
Rebecca said: “I personally think sunbeds should be made illegal in the UK – they’ve been made illegal in other countries. I never used a sunbed much in my life. I had a few sunbed sessions before going on holiday because that was what we would class as the done thing when I was younger.
“We’d do it to prep your skin before you go away when in reality when you actually look at the science behind it, it’s not prepping your skin at all, it’s just damaging it. Going on holiday with friends in my 20s they would always take the mick out of me because I was constantly reapplying my suncream.
“Because I didn’t burn easily, factor 30 was the highest that I would use in my 20s and 30s – up until now. I would use factor 20 for the first few days of the holiday and then I would go down to 15, 10 and then even two.
“I was reapplying the wrong lotion because what I know now is that we should only be using a factor 30 or above.”
Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that can spread to other areas of the body. The main cause of melanoma is ultraviolet light, which comes from the sun and is used in sunbeds.
It’s often possible to prevent skin cancer by being careful in the sun and applying sunscreen regularly. The main treatment for melanoma is surgery, but this also depends on where it is and if it has spread to other areas of your body.