A former sunbed enthusiast who was given a mere year to live after being diagnosed with cancer has issued a stark warning about the dangers of skin cancer, stressing it’s not just about « a mole being removed. »
Jak Howell, only 21 years old in June 2021, was confronted with the grim diagnosis of stage three advanced melanoma. The cancer had aggressively spread from a small area on his back to his groin and chest within a mere two months.
At that time, Jak was frequently using sunbeds up to five times a week for 18 minutes, a practice he started at 16. Despite undergoing two operations to excise tumours from his lower back and leg, the attempts were unsuccessful.
After enduring a year of immunotherapy, Jak received the all-clear in December 2022. Now, he is determined to shed light on the « later effects of mental health having cancer ».
The Swansea-based content creator shared: « It’s kind of surreal. I speak to my friends and say it almost feels like it didn’t happen. When they told me the surgery hadn’t worked and the last [immunotherapy] treatment was a final push, I’d been told if that didn’t work I’d have a year to live. », reports the Mirror.
« No doctor could make sense of how it was so severe at my age. I was asked ‘did you use sunbeds?’
« I said ‘yes, quite a lot’. Doctors then said ‘we can’t physically put it down to that but it is 99.999 per cent chance that is the reason it’s so severe’ As soon as I knew that I knew that I had to get message out about using sunbeds. »
Jak was at home during the lockdown in April 2021 when he noticed a « really itchy » patch on his back that started to bleed. He recounted: « I emailed my GP just before I left for work because you couldn’t do a face-to-face appointment due to lockdown, and by the time I got to work they had replied and said ‘I don’t want to see you, go straight to the hospital’.
« For me that was immediate alarm bells. »
After undergoing a biopsy at Singleton Hospital in Swansea, Jak received news 10 days later that the skin was cancerous.
He explained: « At first, I didn’t expect it to be anything seen people with melanoma have it cut off and move on. It snowballed from there and got bigger and bigger. »
Despite being given the all clear following successful immunotherapy treatments, Jak’s mental health suffered. He said: « Recently more than ever I’ve been trying to push the late effects of mental health having cancer.
« That’s another reason I’d love to push the stopping of using sunbeds. I think for years I’ve tried to tell people ‘don’t use sunbeds’ but I want to push the message now that skin cancer isn’t just a mole being removed, it’s so much more complex than that.
« I always say when they first told me I had the all clear you could have heard a pin drop. I think you build yourself up to not make it that far.
« I think for me it was the most difficult part because my life was lived in hospitals and I knew I was always safe in a hospital, in a sense. Now that I had to just go home, I was on my own again.
« It was the most severe shock to the system I had ever experienced. My mental health declined fast at a pace I didn’t think I’ve ever experienced before.
« I couldn’t cope with what was going on and life by myself. It caused me severe distress, my anxiety I don’t think will ever settle back to a normal level.
« I was able to pull myself out of depressive episodes it put me in, but it was a lot of therapy before that was reached. Men don’t speak out as much, I encourage everyone to speak.
« A problem shared is a problem halved. The biggest problem is you take it on yourself. »
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