'I COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT'

Former model, TV presenter and magazine editor Deborah Hutton talks about her well-publicised skin cancer surgeries, how lucky she feels to be in her sixties, and how we all need to stop putting off a skin check

- Sally Hunwick

Think back to the 1980s when there were crocheted bikinis and your arse was hanging out on the beach; that was that 40 years ago, and nothing has changed.

Growing up, I lived in western Sydney, and when I was 16 I used to catch a train and two buses to get to Bondi Beach. I'd go down to the beach, sunbake topless and just fry. Then in my thirties, I'd go overseas, have a few weeks in Europe and sunbake. It was all about how good it felt. "Oh, my God, look at my brown skin"; "I feel better, thinner." It all felt like such a good idea at the time.

I had a skin cancer when I was working on television with Channel Nine in 2011. It was nothing, just a little tiny red dot. I was in Melbourne and when I got back to the hotel and took my makeup off with a hot washcloth it started bleeding. I was like, "Fuck, I'm in trouble here." I was completely freaking out. It was an infiltrating BCC and I ended up needing to have surgery.

There are different types of BCCs [basal cell carcinomas] and SCCs [squamous cell carcinomas], and then there's melanoma. This was an infiltrating cancer and you just want to avoid it entering the bloodstream, so getting the surgery was pretty urgent.

After the surgery, I got my skin checked every six months. Then, just before Covid, 10 years later, I went in for a check and they told me I needed a biopsy on "those two". And I thought, "What do you mean, two?" I had only seen one. That's what happens; the skin cancer causes a weakness, which the cancer cells target. I had to go in for a second surgery.