Chloe Morello’s plea to Aussie families: check your skin
Source: Women’s Health, October 2024
Throughout my life, skin cancer has been an unwelcomed guest in my family. Both of my parents, after spending their youth in the sun without sunscreen, have had multiple benign skin cancers removed – little reminders that their carefree days had come back to haunt them.
The term “basal cell carcinoma” became a part of our family’s vocabulary and used as a caring reminder to my sister and me to wear sunscreen and stay out of the sun, but melanoma was the word that truly scared me. I remember seeing Cancer Council ads warning how dangerous melanoma could be. Currently, melanoma is diagnosed at a rate of 28.7 per 100,000 males and 19.4 per 100,000 females.
I felt thankful my parents hadn’t faced that. Until, one day, my mum did.