Judy & Chris Bailey 'Each Day Is A Gift'

They felt confident it was nothing to worry about, until they were called back to see the doctor. Judy Bailey writes from the heart about the day she and her husband Chris learnt he had a grade 4 melanoma – a day their world stopped turning.

“He wants you to come into the surgery and bring Jude.” It was the “and bring Jude” bit that had us worried. The man I married is fair-skinned. He burns. Chris also has a lot of moles on his body. We’ve been vigilant about the sun and having regular skin checks, especially after a melanoma in situ was discovered on his calf nearly 20 years ago.

A melanoma in situ is an early stage melanoma… it still sits in the top layer of skin, the epidermis. Mere mention of the word “melanoma” has been enough to cause my stomach to turn itself into knots. I know how dangerous it is, how it doesn’t distinguish between young and old, fit or otherwise.

Chris, because of his Celtic heritage and propensity to have more moles than most, has had his share of basal cell carcinomas removed. Those tend to be on areas exposed to the sun, they’re surface deep and rarely spread to become life-threatening.

Perhaps it’s because he’s had so many of these removed in the past that we weren’t overly concerned when we spotted a tiny pink lump on his forearm before Christmas. It looked a bit like an insect bite. “Better get it checked,” I said. He duly took himself off to our local skin check clinic. “Not sure about this one,” Dr Chris Boberg said. “I think we’ll take it off. I don’t have any operating time before Christmas… let’s wait till January.”