- Michelle Tagliamonte, 58, noticed black lines on her thumb while getting a manicure in September 2024
- The Ohio mom of two said when the line didn’t grow out, she saw a dermatologist, who diagnosed her with early-stage melanoma
- Tagliamonte underwent an “invasive” four-hour surgery to remove the cancer — but says she’s “grateful” she caught it early
An Ohio mom developed black lines on her thumbnail — an early sign of cancer that required an “invasive,” four-hour surgery to keep the potentially deadly cancer from spreading.
Michelle Tagliamonte, 58, first noticed the black lines on her thumb in September 2024. “It could have been in there for six months, it could have been in there for longer, I have no idea,” she said, according to the Daily Mail.
The mom of two, who regularly gets manicures, said she took photos of the lines before covering them with polish, saying she expected them to have grown out by her next manicure appointment in October.
But the lines were still there.
Tagliamonte went to a dermatologist, who told her the “discoloration at the base of my thumb nail … this black line in my nail was coming from inside the growth plate down from inside my nail.”
The cause 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.”
“The melanoma was in the growth plate [in my thumb] down to my first knuckle,” explains Tagliamonte. She was lucky; the melanoma was caught early and classified as stage zero, or “in situ,” meaning it hadn’t yet spread.
However, she required a four-hour surgery to remove the cancer. “They had to cut out and they had to create a skin graft so when they had to dig out the melanoma, the bone and the tendon was exposed so they had to put some flesh back in it.”
“The skin graft was pretty invasive,” Tagliamonte says about the Jan 17 surgery. “I will never have a thumbnail ever again but if I had let it go, I might have lost the tip of my thumb or worse, so I am very grateful and it is healing well.”
She wasn’t left with any nerve damage from the surgery but she lost her right thumbnail and has a jagged scar that runs down her hand. Still, she says, “I was more worried about what they were going to have to do to get rid of [the cancer] and the surgery itself. This was scary.”
“I am very grateful that I caught it at stage zero and it was localized. I think it’s just a matter of being diligent to get myself checked out.”
According to The Skin Cancer Foundation, UV lamps that have become the standard at nail salons — and are required to set gel polish — present a “moderate” risk of cancer; the organization recommends applying a “broad spectrum (UVA/UVB) sunscreen to hands 20 minutes before your hands are exposed to UV light.”
However, while the lamps present a lower risk than tanning beds, the Skin Cancer Foundation recommends avoiding them if you can. Sunscreen “does not protect against subungual (under the nail) squamous cell carcinoma, a rare but potentially aggressive form of skin cancer” that differs from the type of cancer Tagliamonte developed.
“If getting a regular manicure, the safest bet is to allow nails to air-dry naturally, avoiding the drying lamps altogether or use an air blower or fan without UV lights.”
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