Ann's Kiwi Skin Story

“I was an ath­lete and aer­o­bics instruc­tor and I often trained out­doors. I lived for the sun until I was diag­nosed with a grade 3 melanoma at age 27. They removed the mole and I was only con­cerned about the 2 cm scar on my back, until the spe­cial­ist called me and said: ​‘Get your sup­port peo­ple around you. We need to oper­ate this after­noon’. After that, my life changed for­ev­er. I stopped train­ing out­doors. In fact, I didn’t go in the sun again for 20 years.

The out­doors is now part of my life again. My new part­ner is out­doorsy and I real­ly want­ed to get out­doors with him. But it’s dif­fer­ent now. When I go on hol­i­days to over­seas beach­es I enjoy it, but I nev­er go in full sun and I always cov­er up with the right cloth­ing and sun­block. I’ve been wear­ing a face cream with an SPF in it for 25 years. I’d always been too scared to live that life again.

I know by get­ting a skin check that I’m pro­tect­ed. If some­thing changes, we’ll all know. I’m the biggest advo­cate of safe sun habits and reg­u­lar skin checks and I’ve been get­ting my skin mapped now for over 15 years. I pro­tect myself from the sun so that I’ll have a life­time with my part­ner and our families.”