Johannesburg - It started off looking like a beauty spot on the left side of her leg.
Actress and TV presenter Naniki Seboni, 25, didn’t think much of it at first, aside from the pain she felt from it. So she dismissed it as a little spot that would go away with self surgery, if she just took a needle and gouged it out.
But it didn’t go away. Instead it came back, bigger and uglier.
“It took on a very irregular shape, it looked like a big fly and was so painful.One time I accidentally hit it against a table and it bled- I had a searing pain for over 20 minutes,” Seboni told The Star.
That was two years ago.
Last year, just two months after her 25th birthday, Seboni was diagnosed with malignant melanoma - skin cancer.
Her first reaction when doctors at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital told her was: “How? I’m black?”
While malignant melanoma does not appear on the National Cancer Registry’s top 10 cancers for black women, according to the South African Melanoma Advisory Boardadvisory board the country has one of the highest incidences of it in the world.
According to the board, melanoma is a type of skin cancer that derives from the pigment-producing cells (melanocytes) in the skin.
It can, unlike other forms of skin cancer, spread rapidly through the lymph or blood system to other major organs.
The Cancer Association of SA (Cansa) says at least 80 percent of sun-induced skin damage occurs before the age of 18 and only manifests later in life.
Seboni remembers being very conscious of the sun when she was still in high school as she burnt easily, and with the active sporting life she led, she constantly wore sunscreen -even though she was ridiculed by friends who said she used it in an effort to be lighter skinned.
After her initial diagnosis, Seboni said it took her a couple of months to go back to the hospital because she feared what it meant for her life.
“I was terrified, I was 25. I thought I hadn’t done this, I hadn’t done that yet. When you think about cancer, you think you’re going to die. My partner eventually convinced me to go back. When I did, doctors found the cancer had grown towards my groin area,” she said.
Seboni had an operation to remove the cancer last year, and will start chemotherapy this year to make sure she is completely cancer-free.
“I recently discovered my grandmother also had cancer but never really told anyone. Now I need to take a full test because it is clearly genetic. I have a terrible scar on my leg nowand cover it everywhere I go. I’ve had to go for psychological counselling because I wasn’t dealing well. I’ve had to do introspection into what it means for me to have cancer,” she said.
Seboni credited her mother, boyfriend and Facebook group members of Cansa’s Champions of Hope as being her pillars of support through her journey with cancer, with both her mother and boyfriend nursing her and encouraging her to be healthy.
Cansa said skin cancer could be reduced by avoiding direct sunlight between 10am and 3pm, staying in the shade or under an umbrella as much as possible, wearing protective clothing like wide-brimmed hats and UV protective clothes or swimsuits, wearing sunglasses with a UV protection rating of minimum UV400, and regularly applying sunscreen (SPF 20-50, depending on skin type).
The Star