A mum who mistook a mark on her fingernail for a bruise found out it was cancer after her nail technician told her to get it looked at.
Stacey Boss, 32, had dismissed a thin brown streak that was under her fake nails in 2019.
A nail technician refused to do a manicure and told her to make an appointment with a dermatologist.
The mum-of-one was diagnosed with subungual melanoma - a rare type of skin cancer that occurs under the nails.
The record label owner had part of her nail and bone removed on March 27, but she needs further tests to determine if cancer has spread to other parts of her body.
Stacey says the nail technician possibly saved her life and that she now gets a shellac French manicure for a reduced price, due to having fewer fingernails.
The music lover is now keen to raise awareness of the importance of everybody checking nails for abnormalities as regularly as possible.
Stacey, from Glasgow, told the Daily Record: "If I get a discount, we call it a ten per cent discount because I've only got nine fingernails.
"A nail technician refused to do a manicure and asked me to have it invested with dermatology. I was very confused, I didn't know anything about how melanoma skin cancer could be in a nail bed. It was mind-boggling.
"I'd noticed it for a long time and just kind of shrugged it off as maybe a bruise. I'd just got used to it and it wasn't until someone pointed it out that it was a big shocking moment. The nail technician possibly saved my life, she's well trained and was very aware, more than me."
She first went to a GP in November 2019 and was referred to a dermatologist.
She had her first assessment in the last week of October 2022 and eventually had a biopsy of her nail bed and it removed on March 27.
Stacey said: "It was like a streak, it was like someone had marked my nail with a permanent marker from the cuticle to the top. It was thin and skinny and almost as if someone had dented a mark on it, by the end it looked like a smiley face due to the shadow of the line, the dent and the way the cuticle grows.
"It was weird how it just kept growing up, up until the point of removal that's how it was. The way it's cut out has removed even down to the bone. It was such a relief to have it out I'll tell you that. It wasn't a shock to be told I had this cancer, as I'd already known.
"I believe it was the same way I knew I had a brain tumour, I knew something was wrong. I had anxiety, my whole body was changing, the line was never going away, it was always there.
"I'd accepted the possibility of losing my nail so that mentally I was prepared for it being in situ. I'd tell others to check your nails, maybe not a daily thing but every now and again."
Symptoms of subungual melanoma include streaks on the nails, colour changes in or around the nail, a bruise under the nail that does not heal, and the nails separating from the nail bed.
