SCARY.
Jade Thrasher is a young nurse from Tennessee. In 2014, her father Charles noticed that she had an odd sore growing on the side of her nose.
When the sore continued to grow, then began to burst and refused to heal, she went to get a biopsy. The news came back: she had skin cancer.
How had she gotten it? From years of tanning in salons and even in her own personal tanning bed.
“There was so much pressure to be tanned — everyone wanted to be bronzed,” Jade told The Daily Mail. “It is seen as unattractive to be pale where we live in Nashville.”
At the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Jade consulted with doctors regarding the melanoma on her face. During the surgery, doctors removed a dime-sized portion of skin out of her nose. In order to correct the hole, they removed skin off of her chest which left a six-inch long scar.
“I want teenagers to see the photo of the hole in my nose so that they know what could happen,” said Jade. “I used to have a sunbed in my house, but I’ve thrown it in the trash. I didn’t want to sell it, because I didn’t want anybody else to go through what I went through. I definitely regret the years of tanning, but in a way I saved my skin at a young age because I got cancer.”
Luckily, Jade found the cancer early on, and didn’t require chemotherapy. She made a full recovery after months of terrible pain from the surgery, but had to undergo an additional surgery to correct the scars on both her nose and her chest.
“When you’re a teenager you think you’re invincible,” Jade explains. But you’re not: “You have to be confident in your own skin, regardless of what color it is.”
Jade refuses to use a tanning bed anymore, and always makes sure to use SPF 50 sunblock whenever she’s outside.
Make certain to protect yourself this summer and not let the sun damage your skin. Use sunblock and your best judgment, and remember that tanning beds are just as deadly as the real thing.
