When Erin Jackson walked into her eyebrow appointment in Alnwick last February, she wasn't expecting to be told she needed to get checked for cancer.
But months later, with a skin cancer diagnosis and an operation planned for the coming months, the Northumberland mum is thanking her lucky stars she booked to see skincare expert Rachel Scott - and is urging others not to ignore worrying warning signs that could be life-threatening.
Erin, 34, had a HD brow appointment at Rachel's newly re-launched Alnwick Advanced Specialist Skin and Laser Clinic. Previously, Rachel had specialised in beauty treatments, but after passing her qualifications she has now expanded to offer a range of complex skincare procedures.
Read more: Heartbreak as Dunston mum discovers lump in neck is cancer just months after terrifying Covid fight
Erin had been irritated by a patch of skin on her cheek for some time, but put it down to other factors - thinking that it could even have been caused by wearing face masks for much of the last two years. However, when she mentioned it off-hand to Rachel, the expert took a look and urged her to get it checked out. After seeing a GP, she found she had a basal cell carcinoma - one of the most common, but thankfully least lethal, kinds of cancer.
She told ChronicleLive : "I'd wondered slightly about it [the patch of skin] but never done anything about it. I'd noticed it previously.
"I thought maybe I had it longer than I had thought. We have also been wearing masks for such a long time by that point - I wondered if it was just something to do with a mask rubbing.
"I'm really indebted to Rachel. She basically just said 'not to scare you, but you want to get this checked out.'"
She's now under the care of top medics at the Freeman in Newcastle and awaiting the procedure to remove the cancer. Because the kind of skin cancer she has - a basal cell carcinoma - develops very slowly, it's unlikely to cause immediate harm. However, if it was left unchecked it could grow and even affect the bones in her face.
In the UK, around 147,000 new cases of non-melanoma skin cancer are diagnosed each year.
Erin added that people shouldn't put off going to their GP about concerns like this. She said: "Previously maybe I just hadn't wanted to bother GPs or anything - because of Covid and it being harder to see a GP anyway. I thought I'm just 34, it's just a little mark. But Rachel gave me the push I needed.
"It's of course been a massive shock. It still feels stupid to be saying it's skin cancer, but it is." She said because it had shown she's susceptible to the worrying skin damage caused by the sun, she was now changing her lifestyle to buy more long-sleeved clothes and reduce her exposure to harmful UV rays.
Rachel is trained in the early detection of skin cancer and now also a patron for the charity Skcin. She said: "Erin came in actually just for a HD brow appointment. But she mentioned that there was a small patch of her skin where her face mask had been rubbing. I had a look and thought it looked like a basal skin carcinoma.
"I always try to do this with clients. We see changes in their skin that they might not notice. With Erin, the patch of skin I checked was different to the rest."
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