Anne Getzly We hope for more time

THIS SYDNEY LOCAL IS BARING HER SKIN TO RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT SKIN CANCER

- Jodie Wolf

Recruitment director Anne Gately, 56, was referred to a dermatologist for a simple skin check 12 years ago, and results from a biopsy on a mole revealed she had melanoma. Initially, she says she was in shock. “My mind went to the worst place.” But she acted quickly in organising the next steps and met with a surgeon, who advised surgery to remove the mole and promised to operate the following day. “I’ve got quite a big scar on my back,” Anne says. “I had to wait two weeks for the pathology report to tell me if the cancer had gone to my lymph nodes.”

Anne spent the following fortnight with “big metal staples” in her back and calling on friends and family to redress her wound, keeping her situation hidden from her two young sons. “I’d made the decision not to tell my boys until I knew what the pathology results were,” she shares. “Two weeks later I received fantastic news, it hadn’t travelled to my lymph nodes!”