By the time BBC journalist Sarah Lee was able to get doctors to listen, her cancer had spread.
BBC journalist Sarah Lee was diagnosed with stage three malignant melanoma in January, five months after three different doctors had dismissed her concerns about a new mole on her scalp.
That's when I saw it - a pea-sized black mole lurking among my fine blonde hair. I was certain it hadn't been there before.After looking at my mole with a dermatoscope, the skin specialist told me three things: it didn't look unusual, I was too young to have skin cancer, and that it was almost impossible to get melanoma on the scalp, as the hair acts as a barrier to the sun's ultraviolet radiation.
"I'm glad you came," she told me. "I'm really concerned about these spots on your head." A week later the mole was gone, replaced with a rather large scar.After a Christmas and new year of high anxiety, the results came in. When I heard the word "dissection", I instantly thought about the sad-looking fish I had to cut up in Year 11 biology.Twenty-four lymph nodes were removed from the left side of my neck during an eight-hour operation. One lymph node was found to be positive for melanomaTwo drains were placed in the wound to ensure lymph fluid and blood did not collect under the skin
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