Deborah Hutton’s skin cancer journey: “I’m not out of the woods”

In May 2020, Deb­o­rah under­went major surgery to remove two Basal Cell Car­ci­no­mas (BCC) from her face. Although the surgery suc­cess­ful­ly removed all the can­cer, she still remains at high risk for skin can­cers in future.

“It will hap­pen again — I’m not out of the woods,” she said, ​“That area of the face is a free­way for skin cancer.”

She now gets her skin checked every three to four months to ensure she stays on top of any changes or ear­ly warn­ing signs.

Twelves months after her life­sav­ing surgery, Deb­o­rah took to Insta­gram again with a pos­i­tive update on how her face was healing.

“[My] mes­sage is clear and sim­ple … Don’t be afraid, don’t put it off, don’t delay … If you haven’t had your skin checked with a pro­fes­sion­al in the last 12 months, it’s time to get an [appoint­ment],” she wrote in the Insta­gram post.

“If I’d jumped on it soon­er than I did, I might have avoid­ed such an inva­sive surgery,” she added.

The before and after pho­tos, tak­en one year apart, show how excep­tion­al­ly well her scars had healed in just twelve months. Although she looks just as gor­geous as ever, Deb­o­rah reminds us that hav­ing skin checks is ​“more impor­tant than vanity.”

“The fear shouldn’t be the scar that might be left, the fear should be not get­ting to (the can­cer) in time … Your face will heal or you could lose every­thing — mouth, nose, ear — you need to com­mu­ni­cate with,” she cautioned.

“I’m lucky to have an incred­i­ble sur­geon who pieces my face back togeth­er,” she added.

There may be a long road ahead in Deb­o­rah Hutton’s skin can­cer jour­ney, but her deter­mi­na­tion to change people’s per­cep­tion of their rela­tion­ship with the sun is stronger than ever.

“We can­not treat the sun as our mate,” she once stated.

She’s also been very clear about her dis­like for see­ing peo­ple pur­pose­ful­ly tan­ning them­selves in the sun, not­ing pre­vi­ous­ly, ​“I wish it were fash­ion­able to be pale.”

This is one of the big rea­sons why she has launched her own range of UPF 50+ hats under her label, Canopy Bay. The face, head and neck are some of the most com­mon areas for skin can­cer. Wear­ing prop­er sun pro­tec­tive cloth­ing of UPF 50+ is one of the best ways to pre­vent skin can­cer and reduce your melanoma risk.

Want to gain a bet­ter under­stand­ing of your per­son­al skin can­cer risk? Take our free quiz — it only takes a few minutes.