Yes, the sun IS deadly – and here’s my cancer scar to prove it, says JANET STREET-PORTER after Ulrika Jonsson said she didn’t regret the sun worship that’s led to startling skin damage
Honestly, I am not a particularly vain person, which is a good thing because I now have a scar running right down my nose. Yes, slap bang in the middle of my face.
It will fade, but for the time being I am going to have to get used to seeing this new line when I look in the mirror.
It’s the scar I was left with after I had surgery to remove a cancerous skin growth last month — and one I regard as just another milestone in a very eventful life.
I now have a scar running right down my nose. The scar I was left with after I had surgery to remove a cancerous skin growth last monthThe irony is not lost on me — a fair-skinned woman who’s spent half a century taking huge care of my skin, wearing Factor 50 in the sun, slathering my face in moisturiser morning and night, and shunning thick foundation if I’m not working — that I should get skin cancer.
I haven’t been sunburned for more than 30 years. Yet the tiny spot on my nose, which I thought was an insect bite in February turned out to be a basal cell carcinoma, the most common kind of the disease.
It just goes to show: a beauty regime may postpone wrinkles — at 73, I probably have fewer than many women my age — but nothing can prevent the hidden damage caused by the sun’s rays, even for the most careful.
I winced when I read Ulrika Jonsson’s confession in the Mail this week that she’s too much of a sun-worshipper to give up sunbathing — after she posted a very revealing picture of her sun-damaged face online.
I’m not a fan of sunbathing, but I do play tennis, walk a lot, love messing about in my vegetable patch and eat as many meals outside as I can. At this time of year, I’m always in T-shirts and shorts — but never without with at least a factor 15 or 30 sunscreen on my skin.
But hiking in open countryside exposes your face to all the elements, wind and sun, and can really wreck your skin. I keep thinking back to a trip I made in 1999, when I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for the Elton John Aids Foundation.
The sun was really baking my nose, even though I was wearing Factor 100. In the end, I made a nose cover out of a piece of cardboard and looked like a lanky penguin.
Could that have been where the damage was done? It could have been much earlier.
In the Fifties, there was no such thing as suntan lotion. My mother would buy a very small bottle of olive oil from the chemist and slather that on us. No one had heard of sun protection other than wearing a hat.
Summers were spent in North Wales in Llanfairfechan, the village where Mum grew up and where we stayed with my Welsh granny . . . I went to the beach every day, even when it was raining.
Lockdown meant I had plenty of time to do my research, and although I saw some horrific photos, I was relieved to hear that skin cancer is rarely fatal, considering how many of us are diagnosed with it.
It made me paranoid about skin cancer. Every year for the past decade I have visited a dermatologist to have my moles checked out, stripping off while a medic in a white coat goes over my body with a magnifying glassCancer UK reckons there were around 16,000 cases between 2015 and 2017, of whom just over 2,000 people died — around seven a day. Although the survival rate may be high at 87 per cent, 86 per cent of all fatal cases were said to be preventable.
That said, deaths from skin cancer have risen a shocking 149 per cent since the Seventies — a direct result of cheap holidays in hot climates and our addiction to sun beds.
Skin cancer affects older people, because it is normally a result of prolonged damage to the skin’s DNA from UV rays — currently it occurs in one in 47 women and one in 36 men.
Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the Caucasian population (more than any other kind) because we don’t put adequate protection (i.e. Factor 50) every time we’re outside, even on dull days.
It doesn’t matter how many beauty editors try to tell us pale is fashionable, most women, like Ulrika, think they look better with a tan.
I lost one friend to the disease a few years ago; he died just weeks after diagnosis. A hairdresser I knew had to have a huge melanoma removed from his back, the product of a passion for sunbathing in his 20s.
Ulrika Jonsson (pictured) shares brutally honest selfie as she washes hair for first time in 8 days
While I consider myself careful in the sun, I am nothing compared with Australians. I worked Down Under in the early Eighties, presenting a daily TV show, and made a lot of friends.
When I went back to do I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here . . . in 2004, we reconnected, and I’ve visited regularly ever since. Nearly all of them have had skin cancer growths removed from their faces and arms.
There are skin cancer clinics in every major shopping mall, warning signs on the beaches and on television. Children swim in long-sleeved T-shirts and hats with brims, every inch of exposed flesh covered in cream.
It made me paranoid about skin cancer. Every year for the past decade I have visited a dermatologist to have my moles checked out, stripping off while a medic in a white coat goes over my body with a magnifying glass.
One year, during my mole check, the doctor told me he had just seen a man with a serious case of skin cancer under his armpit — and that man later died. Another reason why I started slapping on even more cream to play tennis in the Australian sun.
On my return to the UK this February, I noticed a small spot just below the bridge of my nose. I thought it was an insect bite, because I attract every mozzy in the neighbourhood when I’m in a tropical climate.
My eczema (I suffer from two patches which regularly flare up without warning) was not responding to the medication I’d been given, so I booked an appointment with a dermatologist.She stared through her magnifying glass at this tiny speck on my nose and said I had to go to a specialist to have a biopsy done in case it was cancerous.
I was terrified, and hastily booked an appointment with Dr Waseem Bakkour, a consultant dermatologist and expert in skin cancer at University College London Hospital who has a private practice in Harley Street.
He carried out a biopsy the following week — a small procedure where a tiny piece of skin is cut away, and sent off to be analysed.
Dr Bakkour is one of a small number of doctors who specialise in a technique known as Mohs surgery. This entails the surgeon cutting into the top layer of a carcinoma, and the patient waits while each sample of skin is analysed in a lab for malignant cells.
That way, only the smallest amount of cancerous tissue is cut out and reconstruction is kept to a minimum.
However, the biopsy confirmed I had a basal cell carcinoma, which, although not life threatening, would have to be removed otherwise it would continue to grow and surgery might be more radical. I was supposed to have the operation at the end of March — I opted to go privately because there is at least a seven-month wait on the NHS.
Then lockdown happened . . .
I spent the entire three months terrified — not because of Covid-19, but because I did not know what was going to happen to my face. Like I said, I’m not obsessed with signs of ageing, but I make my living by appearing on television.
I’m not pretending I’m conventionally attractive, but I am proud of my looks. We live in a society where every single part of the body is analysed and commented on, and you can really feel exposed.
I had the procedure at the end of June. It took a couple of hours — the only painful bit was the numbing injection into my nose, and I was fully conscious throughout.
In my 70s, I’m a rarity on television, where most women are well groomed and perfect, but to many viewers I represent a sign that you needn’t conform, you can grow old and still have something important to contribute. Nevertheless, high-definition television means every wrinkle looks like a huge crease!
It didn’t help that Dr Bakkour showed me pictures of people on whom he had operated — some of their scars stretched right across their cheek, almost to the ear. I wish I’d never seen them.
Because of the pandemic, I was forced to spend weeks worrying — but if I had been waiting to have the surgery on the NHS, it would have taken much longer, as non-urgent cancer cases like mine are being shunted to the back to the queue.
Finally, the operating theatres re-opened and I had the procedure at the end of June. It took a couple of hours — the only painful bit was the numbing injection into my nose, and I was fully conscious throughout.
After the top layer of the growth had been excised, I went back to my room and waited for just under an hour while it was analysed. Luckily, no further tissue had to be removed, and then Dr Bakkour set about reconstructing my nose.
He explained he would repair it by loosening the skin around the wound and elongating the scar so that he could bring the two sides of it together in a way which would maintain the profile of my nose and avoid any unsightly bulges. I think he did a fantastic job, although the picture he took after the operation was horrible!
He warned me I might have bruising, but at least I didn’t get black eyes. I went home with a big dressing on my nose.
After 48 hours I bathed the scar and put on antiseptic ointment. I changed the dressing every day and managed to make it smaller by trimming the plaster with nail scissors.
After six days, I appeared on Loose Women without it, so viewers could see my stitches. Next day, they were removed by Dr Bakkour, who pronounced it a success.
I’ve been inundated with good wishes, and stories from other women who’ve had the same operation. Some have much larger scars, because their cancer was discovered and treated later on.
Now, I massage the scar to stimulate the blood flow so that it continues to settle down and become less noticeable.
I immediately bought Heliocare 360 oil-free gel factor 50 sun block (available online) — Dr Bakkour recommended I wear it every day.
I’ve been lucky, but there’s an increased chance I will have another basal cell carcinoma, so I’m watching for any small lumps which grow, bleed or change shape. I shall definitely keep going for an expert inspection once a year.
My advice is: keep your face out of the sun, wear a hat and slap on Factor 50. Otherwise you could be in for a nasty shock. Post Covid, I wouldn’t want to be on an even longer NHS waiting list for a skin cancer clinic.
It’s going to be hot this weekend. Please be careful!
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