{"id":784378,"date":"2026-07-25T21:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T21:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/784378\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T21:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T21:25:09","slug":"26-year-old-shares-warning-just-months-before-dying-of-melanoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/784378\/","title":{"rendered":"26-year-old shares warning just months before dying of melanoma"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A young woman from Texas left an urgent warning before she died of melanoma last week. She hopes her story can save others.<\/p>\n<p>Alondra Sierra said she was just 19 when she noticed a freckle growing on her forehead. No one told her it could be a problem. It went untreated for too long.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow I live with stage four metastatic melanoma, fighting for my life every day, searching for treatments that might save me,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DX0U3PjOYWA\/?hl=en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the 26-year-old said in a video<\/a> posted for melanoma awareness month in May.<\/p>\n<p>Before she died, Sierra had undergone surgeries, immunology, radiation, and other therapies to try to keep her cancer at bay.<\/p>\n<p>Alondra Sierra passed away on July 17. Alondra Sierra\/Instagram<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSkin cancer doesn\u2019t care how young you are. It doesn\u2019t care how healthy you feel. It doesn\u2019t wait. So please listen: get uncomfortable. Get checked,\u201d she said in the video.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have to get your entire skin checked. Because I don\u2019t want your story to become like mine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alondra\u2019s story<\/p>\n<p>In 2019, SIerra noticed a freckle started to form on her forehead. The color changed from light to dark, she said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@alondra_sierrat\/video\/7228413115866565934?lang=en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">TikTok video<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Cancer didn\u2019t even seem like a possibility to her. It took three years before she learned she had melanoma.<\/p>\n<p>Melanoma is the <a href=\"https:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/health\/diseases\/14391-melanoma\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">most dangerous type of skin cancer<\/a> because it grows quickly and can spread to other organs. It is the deadliest skin cancer, killing over 8,500 people in the US every year.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s one of the most common cancers for young women under 30, and is becoming more common.<\/p>\n<p>By the time Sierra got her diagnosis in 2022, the cancer had \u201cgrown rapidly\u201d and she tried several procedures and treatments to control the cancer. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI probably wouldn\u2019t have gone through so much if I had just seen a medical professional or a dermatologist for my yearly skin and nail check,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Sierra was an outspoken advocate for skin protection and skin cancer awareness. Alondra Sierra\/Instagram<\/p>\n<p>In 2024, she learned the cancer had spread throughout her entire body, including her skull, pelvis, spine, ribs, back, and stomach, she said.<\/p>\n<p>She started on immunotherapy, but in January, she said this \u201cdidn\u2019t work.\u201d In June, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/alondra-fighting-cancer\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">her family said<\/a> she started doing radiation treatment on her brain.<\/p>\n<p>A final message<\/p>\n<p>Over the past four years, Sierra had made it a personal mission to spread awareness about skin cancer, the need for sun protection, and the importance of skin checkups.<\/p>\n<p>She promoted products that helped block UV and spoke out against artificial UV, like sunblock, lasers, and nail lamps. She fought to educate others even while fighting her own battle against cancer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wish this month meant celebration. But instead it means survival. And unfortunately, that is my reality right now,\u201d Sierra said in her May video. \u201cMay 1st, the start of melanoma awareness month. For many, it\u2019s just another month. For me, it is prevention, it is advocacy. It is life, it is survival.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She encourages people of all ages to check the largest organ in the body, the skin, thoroughly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat mole, that freckle, that one spot that changes color, shape, or size.You notice it, but you delay checking it. From your scalp to behind your ears to your back, your breasts, your feet, your genitals \u2014 every inch matters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dermatologists promote the \u201cABCDE criteria\u201d to look out for melanoma. Early signs could be spots that have\u00a0\u201cA\u201dsymmetry, \u201cB\u201dorder irregularity, \u201cC\u201dolor variation, \u201cD\u201diameter larger than 6mm, and \u201cE\u201dvolving shape or size.<\/p>\n<p>Doctors say you should get your skin professionally checked every 2-3 years. Seventyfour \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n<p>Sierra only recently graduated college in 2024 \u2014 the same year she learned the cancer had spread across her body. In March, she became a US citizen after living in this country for 23 years. She had only finished radiation days prior, and was in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n<p>She hopes that by giving others the information she wish she\u2019d had, they might catch cancer earlier than she did.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEarly detection isn\u2019t just important, it\u2019s everything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young woman from Texas left an urgent warning before she died of melanoma last week. She hopes&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[687,97,36854,1608,5972],"class_list":["post-784378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-cancer","tag-health","tag-skin-cancer","tag-sun","tag-sunscreen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}