I went to the doctor after my daughter told me to get the itch checked

A MOTHER has shared how her daughter saved her life after a simple itch turned out to be SKIN CANCER.

Gill Liiv-Rochester began scratching her back repeatedly, unaware that there was a mole on her skin.

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The Durham mother-of-two didn’t think much of the nagging mark on her back and initially ignored the problem.

But daughter Emme, 13, became increasingly concerned about her mother’s incessant scratching and urged her to book a doctor’s appointment to find out what was going on.

Gill went with the doctors, who later discovered two severe and aggressive malignant melanomas where she had scratched.

The 36-year-old told ChronicleLive : “Looking back now, I didn’t realize how exhausted I was and my skin was really dry.

“I thought it was nothing or something very small.

“When I went to the doctors, they asked how long I had had the birthmark on my shoulder, but I had no idea I had one there.”

Doctors warned that Gill would stay between “six to eight weeks” before the cancer would spread to her organs.

The midweek horror then turned into a whirlwind for a few days and the following Monday Gill was in the operating room.

Luckily, the mother was diagnosed with stage one cancer at an early age and is now recovering, but her ordeal is not over.

She said: “With skin cancer, a lot of people think it’s not that serious and you just have it removed and that’s it, but it’s not at all.

“I’m still recovering from another biopsy I had, but I’m getting there.”

Gill now wants to raise awareness of the dangers of skin cancer to help dispel myths surrounding the deadly disease.

She added: “People ask me if they should get a mole checked and I would always say just get it checked.

“It might be nothing, but it might be something.”

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