Farnham woman thought skin cancer after sunburn was birthmark

A woman says she believes getting burnt on holiday in Tenerife as a teenager was the cause of her skin cancer.

Sarah Goldup, from Farnham in Surrey, went on the trip when she was 19 and got sunburnt after using oil instead of sun protection.

She spotted a mark on her chin but dismissed it as a birthmark, ignoring her parents’ advice to get it checked. However, after the shape and colour of the mark changed, she went to the doctor and was diagnosed with malignant melanoma at the age of 38.

Sarah, now 42, said she was “pretty sure” the damage happened during her Spanish holiday, “but only started to emerge years later”.

She underwent two surgeries to remove the cancer – one on her chin and another for a second melanoma found on her chest.

“I was fast-tracked for a biopsy,” she said. “It was just after Covid so I had to wait six weeks for the results.

“During that time, I told myself it was nothing to worry about. But then I got a call asking me to go into the surgery and was told it was malignant melanoma.

“It was both shocking and upsetting.”

She added she was “never a sunbed user, but that was the eras of girls’ holidays when it was all about flying off to the sun and getting a tan”.

She has since had a needle biopsy and the results came back confirming a further recurrence of melanoma.

Afterwards, Sarah had more surgery to remove 35 lymph nodes, 25 of which were cancerous, as her cancer was at Stage 3.

In April, she started a three-month combination of immunotherapy drugs and is now on monthly maintenance treatment until April 2027.

Sarah is backing a campaign, co-ordinated by Cancer Research UK, to encourage people to stay safe in the sun.

She added: “Hopefully I’m on the right course to stop it coming back though.

“I’m doing everything I can – I eat well, I exercise every day, I cover up in the sun and I use factor 50 sunscreen every day, even in the winter.”

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