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- Amanda Hunt, 39, found out she had stage IV melanoma that had never appeared on her skin.
- The mom and lawyer, who was laid off during the pandemic, is undergoing immunotherapy.
- Melanoma is rare but fatal; melanoma that does not appear on the skin is much rarer.
- Visit the Insider home page for more stories.
Amanda Hunt was lying down when she felt a lump on her chest. As someone with breast cysts, the 39-year-old mother from Titusville, Florida wasn’t too worried. Still, she had it checked out by her doctor – and received a surprising diagnosis.
Not only was it cancer, but also melanoma that had spread to the breast and other organs, although Hunt had never noticed anything wrong with her skin.
To have melanoma, she thought “you have a mole or something on your skin that changes, you go to the dermatologist, I hope he catches it soon enough and takes it all off, and then you. are safe, ”Hunt told Today. “So it took a little while for me to figure out what it really meant, and once it got in I was terrified.”
Melanoma only accounts for 1% of skin cancers, but causes the majority of skin cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society. Only about 3% of melanomas are “of unknown origin” or of no known origin, Hunt’s oncologist told Today.
Hunt has used tanning beds several times a week for years
Hunt, a lawyer, grew up in sunny Florida and suffered a lot of sunburn. From age 19 through her early 30s, she used tanning beds, sometimes up to four times a week for years.
In 2011, she was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma, a common skin cancer that her doctor removed. She started having annual skin exams from that point on.
And yet, no sign of melanoma appeared until May 2020, when she felt the lump on her breast. The melanoma was also in his lungs, left kidney, left adrenal gland, and eyes. Tumors also started to grow under his skin.
“How it happened was a mystery,” she wrote for Florida Today. She never missed her annual skin exam and had never been diagnosed with melanoma from a mole. Melanoma has still never been found on the surface of her skin.
Hunt undergoes immunotherapy, which caused type 1
Diabetes
and meningitis, an infection of the fluid around the brain and spinal cord. “It’s a small price to pay to be able to survive metastatic melanoma,” she wrote. She set up a GoFundMe page to fund her medical expenses after losing her job during the pandemic.
Unusual signs of melanoma
The biggest warning sign of melanoma is well known: a new spot or a spot that changes in size, shape or color. But other symptoms can also occur, such as a persistent sore, itching, tenderness, or pain.
Some melanomas can appear in neglected places such as under a fingernail or toenail, inside the mouth, or in the iris of the eye. In Hunt’s case, he never appeared. Maybe it’s because her immune system fought off cancer early on, but some cancer cells crept under the skin and started to metastasize. Or it could be that the melanoma started to spread but regressed under the skin before it was spotted.
Whatever the cause, Hunt is now dedicated to advocating for proper sun protection on his blog, “Love and Sunblock”.
“I’m sorry I didn’t know then what I know now,” she wrote in a letter to herself younger. “I’m sorry I didn’t educate you on a well-balanced life or the importance of protecting yourself from skin cancer. I’m sorry I cared too much about what was popular and ignored your well being in the process. I’m sorry I tried to change the beauty of your fair skin instead of embracing God’s beautiful creation. ”
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