Fast forward a few decades, I’m now the Founder and CEO of Medix and of the As a Matter of Fact platform, constantly flying between time zones, in meetings, visiting hospitals, speaking at conferences, and spending time in boardrooms. I spend my days under fluorescent office lights or the dull haze of airplane cabins. Sunbathing? If you ask me, surely not enough!

Until two weeks ago.

On a casual sunny Saturday, I was out walking around the house in a short-sleeved T-shirt with an open back when my 19-year-old son stopped me. “Mom,” he said, “you’ve got something on your back, and I don’t remember seeing before. It looks… off. You should see a doctor.”

I brushed it off at first—don’t we all? But still I asked him to take a picture of it, and I sent it to one of our dermatologists via WhatsApp (one of the privileges of my work is immediate access to some of the best specialists in the world). Within minutes, I got a response: “Probably nothing, but let’s cut it out to be sure.”

A week later, I visited a plastic surgeon and had it removed. Everyone around me, including my many doctor friends, reassured me: “You? Melanoma? Come on, look at you—fit, healthy, vibrant. It’s probably just a benign mole.”

But the biopsy results came back: localised malignant melanoma.

Let me pause here to explain. Melanoma is the most dangerous form of skin cancer. A localised malignant melanoma means the cancer has already grown beyond the very first stage (known as in situ) and has already invaded other layers of the skin, but it has not yet spread to lymph nodes or other organs. That’s the key phrase: not yet.

Time was of the essence. I returned for a second surgery to widen the excision margins—to make sure there were no possible remaining cancer cells that could seed new tumors and potentially spread to my lungs, liver, or brain. Had no one noticed it, had I waited months longer, systemic treatments like immunotherapy or targeted therapy would have become necessary, with outcomes far less certain.

Even the surgeon, who during the first procedure was convinced it was “just a blue nevus (basically nothing)” was in shock. “I didn’t think you’d be the one,” he admitted.

But melanoma doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t care if you work in healthcare, how much you know, how many doctors you work with, how healthy you eat, or how many marathons you’ve run.

Why I’m Sharing This with You?

Because my son saved my life. And maybe, by reading this, I will save yours, or you might save someone else’s.

Melanoma is sneaky. It often appears on the back, the scalp, or behind the knees—places we don’t look at often. It can look like a mole or blemish, slightly asymmetrical, off in color, irregular in border, or just… not quite right. It can be flat and really look benign to non-medically trained people.

• One person dies of melanoma every 5 minutes globally.
• In 2022, more than 325,000 people were diagnosed with melanoma worldwide, and over 57,000 died from it.
• In countries like Australia and New Zealand, where sun exposure is intense, melanoma is the most common cancer in young adults.
• In Europe, especially in Northern and Western regions, cases have been rising steadily, with early detection making all the difference.

So, here’s what I urge you to do:

• See a dermatologist once a year for a full-body skin check. Not just when something feels wrong.
• Have people around you who care, who notice you. My son’s attention to detail saved me.
• Put down your phone screens. Look at the people you love: your partner, your child, your parent. Really look. Awareness can be lifesaving.

And here is a tip for my readers, the powerful tool everyone should know is the ABCDE rule, a simple guide for evaluating moles or skin spots that may be suspicious.

• A stands for Asymmetry: one half of the mole doesn’t match the other.
• B is for Border: look out for irregular, scalloped, or poorly defined edges.
• C stands for Color: watch for varied shades of brown, black, or even patches of red, white, or blue.
• D is for Diameter: melanomas are usually larger than 6mm (about the size of a pencil eraser), though they can be smaller.
• Finally, E is for Evolving: any change in size, shape, color, or elevation—or new symptoms like bleeding or itching—warrants immediate medical attention. Knowing this can literally save lives.

Melanoma doesn’t wait. Neither should you.

And to my son—thank you for seeing what I couldn’t. Literally. And for giving me the chance to keep going, living, loving, leading.

I hope that through this story, someone else gets to do the same.