Life's Curveballs: How to Protect Yourself from Skin Cancer

🎙 In this episode of In Shock, I share the raw story of my very first cancer diagnosis — lip cancer caused by years of sun worshipping with zero sunscreen.

It started as a tiny spot on my lip that I ignored for months, thinking it was just an ingrown pimple. That tiny spot grew, hurt, and eventually turned out to be squamous cell carcinoma, an advanced skin cancer that almost required extensive reconstructive surgery.

I take you through every step of my journey:

The carefree days of baking in the sun covered in baby oil

Getting second-degree sunburns so bad I ended up in the ER

Spotting a small bump on my lip that changed everything

The shock of being diagnosed with lip cancer while driving down the freeway

Undergoing painful Mohs surgery, awake for a 7-hour procedure as layer after layer of my lip was removed

Seeing my face after surgery and the emotional trauma of living with scars

Learning the importance of early detection, sunscreen, and regular skin checks

But this is more than just a cancer story. It’s about:
🌱 Becoming your own health advocate
📖 Building a medical binder, asking questions, bringing friends to appointments
💛 Finding strength in your community, and learning not to go through scary moments alone
🙏 And realizing how quickly life can change — and why protecting yourself matters.

🔥 Why this matters:

We’re all vulnerable to cancer, whether it’s from sun damage, family history, or pure chance.

Early detection saved my life — and it could save yours.

This diagnosis was just the start. I went on to face melanoma, breast cancer (twice), strokes, aneurysms, and more. I’ll be sharing all of it on this channel, plus stories from amazing guests who’ve faced their own life-altering curveballs.

👉 If you or someone you know is navigating a cancer diagnosis or skin cancer scare, please share this video.
Together, we can build a supportive community so no one feels alone in these terrifying moments.

Thank you for tuning in! I truly appreciate every one of you, whether you’re here for the first time or have been with me from the start.

-
Subscribe & Catch full episodes of In Shock Podcast on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@inshock.podcast 📺
-
For daily doses of  Inspiration Follow me @inshock.podcast on Instagram | TikTok | Facebook  

Transcript

From Sun Worshiper to Cancer Survivor: My Personal Journey with Skin Cancer

 Hi, everyone. and happy Monday. Today, I'm going to share a personal story of my first cancer diagnosis. I have always been a sun worshiper. When I was younger, I remember pouring baby oil all over my body and laying on top of one of those reflective tanning blankets so that I can intensify the sun's rays.

Pretty unbelievable, right? In high school, the beach boys were playing At the beach and a bunch of us wanted to go, the concert was during the school week. So we all called in sick, or I think we even wrote fake notes from our parents so that we could go to this concert. It was a beautiful sunny day

we were in the sun all day. all day with no sunscreen. I ended up with a second degree sunburn all over my body. My mom had to take me to the ER because it was so bad. And on top of that, I had to explain where I got this sunburn because I was supposed to be in school that day. When we were at the hospital, they wrapped me up in gauze, soaked the sunburn.

in cold water to help soothe my burning skin. Everything that touched my skin was pure agony. My skin peeled off, it healed, and guess what? I was back in the sun, still not using sunscreen. So let's fast forward to 2008. I noticed a tiny clear spot on my lip. It kind of looked like a zit. It wasn't painful, so I didn't worry too much about it.

It was something I occasionally catch in the mirror, but as time passed, I noticed it was getting bigger and it started to hurt. I thought it's got to be an ingrown pimple and eventually it'd work its way up to the surface well, six months later, it got even bigger. And the pain radiated through my entire lower lip.

There were patches of flaky, dry skin, like what you would get when your lips were sunburned, except mine weren't sunburned. I tried exfoliating,

I started using a killer moisturizing chapstick with SPF 30.  But my lips were still really dry and flanky.  I had a bright idea. I'm going to give it a squeeze thinking if I squeeze it, eventually it'll push this ingrown pimple to the surface. And I would be able to pop it, right?

The pain was so intense, I nearly passed out. My heart was pounding in my chest, and all for what? Nothing came out. I asked one of my girlfriends, who used to be an esthetician, if we should try to stick a needle through it to extract it.  For those of you who aren't familiar with an extraction, It's when an esthetician uses a small needle to poke a tiny hole through your top layer of skin so they can extract it

she's like, girl, you should probably leave that thing alone and go see a doctor. If you couldn't pop it, it's gotta be something other than a zit. So I made an appointment with my GP and when I met him, he asked  questions, how long has it been there? What changed over the course of seven months?

Had the flakiness stayed the same? Had it gotten worse? And it had definitely gotten worse.  He  shined the light on it, pressed on and around it. And his facial expression changed. He got very serious. He said, I think I'm going to refer you to a dermatologist. I said, what do you think it is?

He said, I'm not really sure. And he left the room. He came back in the room and said, I've got some great news. The dermatologist is going to see you tomorrow.  I felt so relieved thinking I was finally going to get the answers,  I met with the dermatologist. He went through the same series of questions, examining the spot.

And he said, I think we should do a biopsy. Great. I thought they'll snip it off and the pain will be gone. I asked him what he thought it was and he said, it's some type of growth. And I'm thinking like a cyst or an abscess. And he said like a type of keratosis. I had no fucking idea what keratosis was

 A couple of days later. I was in my car flying down the freeway when I received a call from the dermatologist's office and it was my doctor. I was in a really good mood that day, jamming to some loud music in my car. You know that feeling when you're alone in your car and you can listen to whatever music you want and you can pump the volume up as loud as you want and maybe you start to do a little groove with your body.

That's the kind of mood I was in.  The doctor said, is this a good time for you? I said, it is. And he said, are you alone? I thought that was such an odd question. Am I alone? But my spidey senses said this may be a serious conversation and he may be sharing not so great news with you. He said, we got the results back from your biopsy and I'm afraid you have lip cancer.

What the fuck? My heart started racing, I felt like I was going to faint.  Keep in mind, I was flying down the freeway in my car. I was smart enough to know I needed to pull over,  on the side of the road to wrap my head around what I was hearing.  I was so numb. My body started shaking  and I literally couldn't hear anything else he said beyond, you have lip cancer. My brain completely shut off after that. So we finished the call. I sat on the side of the road in my car, I took a lot of deep breaths. I was trying to calm myself so that I could drive back home.

I don't even remember where I was off to that day, but suddenly nothing mattered in that moment other than being in Complete fucking shock you guys. To top things off, I was in the middle of a very difficult divorce and this was just another blow. Later that day, a nurse from the dermatologist's office, called  she referred me to a surgical oncologist who specialized in reconstructive surgery.

There was no consultation. They said, we have booked your procedure. You're going to get a call from their office and they'll explain everything to you. At that point, I was still in shock and consumed with anxiety. My mind was racing to the worst case scenarios. I was thinking I'm going to have my entire lower lip taken off.

It was overwhelming.  I sent a group text to the niches. These are nine of my best girlfriends. to see who could join me at this procedure. Thankfully one of them was available. The doctor's office called me a few days before the procedure to let me know what I could expect.  She said the procedure could take, Several hours to an entire day, depending on the extent of your cancer.

I don't even know what she meant by that. Several hours to the entire day. The morning of the procedure, the waiting room was full of people. They had bandages in various parts of their body, on top of their head, on the side of their faces, on their arms. Some were sleeping in recliners. We were confused by the scene.

And we definitely felt out of place because we were the youngest ones in this waiting room. The space was new and very relaxing. They even had  mood music on. My friend Nancy and I brought our laptops to try and get some work done. But we But I was a mess of nerves and couldn't even think straight.

The nurse had explained the technique they were going to perform is called Mohs surgery. This is a procedure where they basically slice off thin layers of skin one by one until they remove all the cancer. You can think of it like peeling a potato, you know, when you're slowly peeling those layers of potato skin off.

The nurse calls my name, I head back to the surgical room. My heart is racing, but I'm okay. Taking some deep breaths, thinking this is a simple procedure. Everything's going to be fine. One little cut. I'm done. So, I thought I laid down on the reclining chair. It's very similar to what you sit in at a dentist office.

The doctor and his assistant were very nice, very cheerful. They began to prep my lip while sanitizing the area. They inserted a pretty long needle into my lower lip, which had the numbing medicine in it. And then they injected the local anesthesia. Having needles stuck into your lip is not a walk in the park.

It hurts. I could feel the fluid make its way through my lip, but the good news is the doctor always walked through what was happening as he was doing this. The problem was I didn't realize I was going to be awake through this entire procedure. 

 The scalpel passes over my face. That was scary. They begin working away at my lip. The doctor and the staff. It's a Explain what they were doing throughout the entire procedure. And the doctor says, that's it. And I'm relieved at how quick and easy that was. I'm thinking I get to go home now.  They cauterized the area on my lip where they removed the first layer of tissue.

And covered it with a bandage. My lip felt just a tiny bit swollen. And the doctor tells me a pathologist is going to be looking at the tissue that they just removed to make sure that they got all the cancer. Well, the second bombshell comes. The nurse calls me back and the doctor says, 

the cancer is more widespread than we thought. You have pre cancerous cells across your entire lower lip. I immediately thought that meant they were going to take my entire lip off. My body started to shake, When you go into shock, your body will start shaking uncontrollably. tears came streaming down my face. I was no longer the brave girl that I wanted to be in front of my doctor.

This simple procedure I had anticipated became a seven hour ordeal. After each layer was removed, I would be sent back to the waiting room with a large gauze pad to Tape to my lip to await the pathologist verdict that waiting with the uncertainty of how many more times I was going to be called back to have yet another layer of my lip removed 

Was emotionally draining. I was expecting something very different than what took place. It had beaten me down physically and emotionally over the course of seven hours. It is a long fucking time to be in a procedure that you're awake and aware of what's going on.

Finally the good news came. The doctor said, we got it all. You're cancer free. He explained that the cancer in my lip had formed a cone shaped growth  he handed me a mirror and said, I want to show you what we've done.

I was not ready for this. I looked in the mirror. Um, my lip was completely unrecognizable. It was a massive, raw open wound, no stitches, no skin grafting. My lip was the size of a small apple from all of the swelling. They had removed a fair amount of skin that covered three quarters Of my lip. And then the other quarter that was left was covered with pre cancerous cells that would have to be frozen off after my lip heals. So we weren't done with this, but they don't stitch the lip back up. They cauterize it to prevent it from bleeding and they allow it to heal naturally. They wrap it up with cotton gauze and this bandage that covered my entire lip all the way under my chin.

I couldn't really talk after the procedure because my lip was so swollen and the bandages were  in the way. There was a lot of trauma done to the lower left side of my lip. So after the shit show, I swore I would never. Go outside without applying sunscreen on ever again so that I wouldn't have to experience a procedure like this.

I walked into the waiting room. I could see the pure shock on my girlfriend's face. Once she and I stepped outside of the office, I completely fell apart. She was hugging me so tight that the emotional drain and the weight of the day  came crashing down on me. The recovery was long and painful.

That was something that I wasn't clear on either. The pain was difficult. When I would eat solid foods, it was really awkward trying to eat with these large bandages across my lip and Drinking from a straw, like even blending my food up and putting it in a glass and having a liquid meal was challenging because the straw would press on my lip and it was painful.

I'd see the doctor on a very regular basis. They would change out the bandages, put new bandages on, and over time the bandages would get smaller and smaller. But it was, But I was in bandages for a little over three months while I was healing up. It left a visible scar. And it's a constant reminder of the battle that I went through.

Sometimes it make me feel a little self conscious because I can see the scar  people will point it out as if I didn't know it was there. Hey, you've got something on your lip. Yeah, I do. It's a scar. Guess why I have it.  Through this experience, I learned some stuff, 

We are all born with cancer cells? As hard as that is to imagine or believe, it is the truth. They are there, and for various reasons, they can activate themselves. It could be your family history, the environment, what you're eating, even alcohol. They are now pinning alcohol consumption on you.

On increasing the risk of developing a couple different types of cancer, mouth cancer, throat, liver, breast, colon.  

I was diagnosed with squamous cell cancer. It was an advanced cancer at that time,  that type of cancer is most commonly found on the lip and ear and it's caused by too much sunshine. The cancer cell itself can break off and make its way into your lymphatic system.

If you see something changing on your skin, go have it looked at by a doctor.  Think about it. If I didn't go in to have my lip checked out, it would've made its way into my lymphatic system. Especially with it being cone shaped, it was already starting to build its way  that direction.

So don't underestimate cancer's curious ways into our lives, family history or not. We are all susceptible to it. I myself am at a much higher risk today than I was yesterday. Just thinking back about this Mohs surgery, I would have faced an extensive surgery with skin grafting to remove and reconstruct my entire lip.

If Moe's did not exist, I'm so grateful for the advancement in surgical technology for skin cancer. It could have been so much worse.  Because of having lip cancer, I had to have regular skin checks. After a few years of having clean checkups, I got a little relaxed and I started blowing off the appointments.

That was a big mistake. When I got back on track in 2018, I was diagnosed with melanoma.  It's  less common, but  very dangerous and deadly. It can quickly spread into the bloodstream and other parts of our organs. They found my melanoma on my upper back, running down my spine.

I would have never found this thing. Think about it. How many times do you look in the mirror at your back? Probably not as much as we think. Even if you're looking at your hair and you don't have a shirt on, you might be looking at your muscles, but you're not really looking at freckles. I have freckles on my back,  I never would have noticed it.

 Now I have another scar to add to the one on my lip. I have a zipper on my back that's over my spine.  If you love the sun as much as I do, please protect yourself, wear SPF 30 or greater sunscreen daily. Even on cloudy days, it will protect you.

My home office is in a very bright room because  the sun is blasting through that window. I wear sunscreen inside my house because the sun's rays are coming through that window. Early detection.  Is crucial. This diagnosis for me was just the beginning of a series of challenges that I faced

When you receive terrifying news like a cancer diagnosis, no matter what kind it is, You can feel alone in that moment, paralyzed, unsure of the future, in shock. There's  adrenaline that oftentimes will keep you up every single night because you're in this vortex. And until you get more information from the doctor, it's very difficult.

 To fall asleep  I've talked about this before. It's so important to have a village of people around you, bring them to your appointments and your procedures. My girlfriends were my rock. They were absolutely invaluable to me. My first diagnosis caught me completely off guard.

I had no plan, no notebook, no idea what to expect. I had no idea what questions to ask. I went in completely blind and numb. While everything turned out okay, I learned a lot from this experience. As I faced more of life's curve balls, I became more proactive. More engaged in what was happening to me. I became my own advocate.

I asked lots of questions The friends that I brought with me to my appointments asked questions and as more shit hit the fan with my health I built a binder that I brought to my appointments. It had all of my medical records in it. And as I said before, when you're diagnosed with something you can't hear anything else after they tell you you have cancer.

You've got to prepare yourself. Bring your family and friends with you and that handy notebook so that you can write your questions down ahead of your appointments and write the information down that the doctors are sharing with you. It keeps you engaged. We're all in this together. If you or someone you know is navigating a diagnosis, please continue to listen in and share this podcast.

I want to build a community of support and understanding. So that people have a place to go to so they don't feel alone. Thank you for tuning in. Stay tuned for more stories of how I faced and overcame other life threatening health challenges. It sure does seem the universe decided I could handle a lot, and it certainly has done.

Dished out. It's share battles for me. That's all coming up  plus I'll have amazing guests sharing their own battles of life curve balls and how they overcame them. Until next time.