Tawny Willoughby used a tanning bed four to five times a week in high school and is now fighting a serious case of skin cancer. The Kentucky native posted a photo of her face, riddled with cancerous spots, which went viral on the World Wide Web.
Willoughby always had access to a tanning machine when she was growing up and never thought of the possibility of skin cancer as she worked to darken her skin. While attending nursing school, she learned that a classmate had been diagnosed with melanoma. This drove her to schedule her first-ever appointment with a dermatologist, who informed the young woman that she did indeed have skin cancer. Since that initial diagnosis, Willoughby has been found to be suffering from squamous cell carcinoma once and basal cell carcinoma on five occasions.
"If anyone needs a little motivation to not lay in the tanning bed and sun here ya go! This is what skin cancer treatment can look like. Wear sunscreen and get a spray tan. You only get one skin and you should take care of it," Willoughby wrote on her Facebook page.
Since the original photo was first posted on April 25, the image had been shared almost 60,000 times by May 13.
"I truly hoped to change at least one persons view on tanning/skincare/sunscreen by posting my treatment photo and now I can't believe how many people it has touched. This is ridiculous to even have to say, but I've gotten so many comments and messages today I am having a hard time keeping up," Willoughby told her followers on social media.
The cancer patient, now 27 years old, currently visits the dermatologist once or twice a year, having skin cancer removed almost every time.
Around 30 million people, including 2.3 million teenagers, tan indoors at least once a year, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. More than 70 percent of users are Caucasian females between the ages of 16 and 29. Medical researchers have found that the use of indoor tanning beds are linked to melanoma, as well as nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC).
"Each year, more than 419,000 cases of skin cancer, including both melanoma and NMSC, in the U.S. are linked to indoor tanning," AAD officials reported.
Willoughby has a two-year-old son, Kayden, and she tells her followers she wants to be alive to watch him grow up.
May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month, which helped to encourage the patient to post the photo that has created such news both online and in print.
