Fresh off a breakup, a flight attendant chalked her exhaustion up to heartbreak and jet lag — but it was the early stages of melanoma, the result of six years of using tanning beds.
Chloe Broad, 24, was struggling with debilitating exhaustion last year. “I just wanted to stay in bed thinking I was jet lagged or heartbroken,” she tells Kennedy News and Media via The Daily Mail.
Her “constant exhaustion” led to Broad taking three weeks off work. But a week after she returned, she says she noticed a mole on her arm was “dry and itchy.” That’s when Broad, who hails from the English town of Exmouth, noticed that a mole on her other arm had changed color.
She immediately sought medical care. “Even just by looking at it, they were pretty certain it was skin cancer,” she said.
The diagnosis was melanoma, which VeryWell Health explains is “not as common as other forms of skin cancer, [but] it is the most dangerous. It can spread quickly to other organs if not detected early enough.”
Broad admitted that she knew the cause; For six years, she said she “abused” tanning beds and “very rarely” wore sunscreen. “I knew I was at risk of skin cancer,” she said. “You just never think it’s going to happen to you.”
Still, the admitted “sunbed addict” admits, “’I was getting sunbeds every single day,” saying she was spending hundreds a month on tanning. “Once I started getting darker I would do the maximum, which was 24 minutes.”
Doctors were able to remove her melanomas as the cancer hadn’t yet spread. Once it spreads to nearby lymph nodes, the survival rate drops to 73.9%. Further spread causes its survival rate to drop to 35.1%, VeryWell Health says.
Broad says she’s in remission but needs skin checks every six months for the next five years. “I just feel silly that I spent all that money to essentially be more attractive,” she said, “and now have a scar that’s seen at almost all times.”
While she still loves tans, she’s switched to spray tans, telling the outlet, “I regret ever going on the beds.”
“I would much rather not have the scars it’s left and have saved the money.”
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