I first noticed the mole on the back of my head at the barber's
Elliott was 24 when a mole on the back of his head was diagnosed as stage 4 melanoma, a type of skin cancer. His ongoing treatment has been complicated by an existing condition called Crohn’s disease, and he’s needed bowel surgery and further immunotherapy.
Being diagnosed with melanoma
The first time I noticed the mole on the back of my head was when I’d had my hair cut and the barber held up a mirror. I couldn’t remember ever having the mole before. I left it for a couple of months, but it started getting bigger and more raised.
The GP sent it off for testing, but I didn’t think anything of it. In December 2020, I was given an appointment at Blackburn Hospital. Because the Covid pandemic was in full force, I was alone when I received the worst news of my life. The mole was cancerous.
I couldn’t process it; it was so weird. I couldn’t help thinking about why I had cancer. I am a red head, so I didn’t use sunbeds often, but I’d been on a few. I’d been on injections for Crohn’s disease, so we wondered if that had caused it. It could have been none of those things, but it kept running through my head.
A couple of days later I was introduced to Teenage Cancer Trust’s outreach nurse, Tracie McVeigh. I didn’t think I needed an extra person involved in my medical care and I was reluctant to engage with her. But it was absolutely the best thing that I did as I don’t know what I would have done without her. I was so anxious about my future and, every time I spoke to her, she calmed me down.
I had a couple of surgeries and then a skin graft. The first time I saw it I was shocked. I had a crater the size of my palm on the back of my head. It was like something out of a horror movie. The hair won’t ever grow back, but I’m used to it now.
They started the investigation stage in February 2021 to see if it had spread. Something showed up on the PET scan and the MRI scan confirmed that my cancer was at stage 4 and had spread to my liver.
Crohn's disease and my cancer
Having Crohn’s complicated things and after we were told the cancer was in my liver, my parents and I worried that there was nothing they could do for me. We were told than a normal dose of immunotherapy would aggravate my Crohn’s disease, but the doctors decided to start me on a weaker dose.
I began to have immunotherapy every other week, but after the second session I started having a bad bowel obstruction. It was unbearable. I was in the worst pain of my life, and I was screaming the hospital down. I was shouting for them to do anything to take the pain away.
They put me on a liquid diet, and I could only drink water and nutritional shakes. It was so hard; I can’t even look at those shakes now. They thought that I’d need to be on that diet for six weeks, but after four weeks they decided I needed a stoma bag fitted.
The Crohn’s disease meant that I might have needed a stoma bag in the future, but that was years away and the immunotherapy accelerated it. Having one is an inconvenience and I always need to know where the toilets are if I’m out. But I’m coping with it so much better than I was to start with. It has controlled the pain so I’m still undecided as to whether I will have it reversed after I finish treatment.