Health
Melanoma patients reveal dramatic stories for Skin Cancer Awareness Month: ‘I thought I was careful’
Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the U.S. — with one in five Americans developing the disease by the age of 70.
Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, expected to take the lives of more than 8,200 people in the U.S. this year.
This May, for Skin Cancer Awareness Month, two melanoma patients are sharing their stories of how they overcame this invasive form of the disease.
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One even wrongly assumed that what she was experiencing “was just a normal part of aging and sun exposure.” Here’s what others can learn.
What is melanoma?
Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that starts in the melanocytes, which are the cells that produce the skin’s pigmentation (color).
Most cases — but not all — are caused by exposure to ultraviolet light. Melanoma can affect people of all skin tones and types.
“Melanoma is one of the most common type of cancer in younger patients,” Nayoung Lee, M.D., assistant professor of dermatology at NYU Langone Health, told Fox News Digital.
Abby Weiner, pictured at left and at right with her husband and sons, was diagnosed with melanoma in Oct. 2023. (Abby Weiner)
The prognosis is “very good” when melanoma is detected early, but the survival rate falls steeply when it is detected at a more advanced stage, she noted.
“Melanoma can spread through the bloodstream to your lymph nodes and distant organs, so it is crucial to do regular skin exams to try to catch it at an early stage,” Lee said.
One mom’s story
Abby Weiner, 43, a wife and mother of three young boys living in Washington, D.C., had always been careful about protecting her skin from the sun — which is why her Oct. 2023 melanoma diagnosis was such a shock, she said.
“I had a spot on my cheek that started as a freckle and began getting darker and larger,” she told Fox News Digital.
“I assumed it was just a normal part of aging and sun exposure.”
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Weiner’s sister encouraged her to get it checked out — which led to a biopsy and diagnosis.
“I was obviously shocked and frightened at first,” said Weiner.
Her melanoma was removed using Mohs surgery, a procedure in which thin layers of skin are removed one at a time.
“I required two procedures to remove the cancer and surrounding margins,” she said. “Now, most people don’t even know I had surgery.”
To others, Weiner’s advice is to remember to seek shade, wear sun-protective clothing, and apply a broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher on a daily basis all year long.
“If we were eating outdoors and there wasn’t a table in the shade, I would end up sitting in the sun.”
“I thought I was careful about protecting myself from sun exposure by wearing a hat or applying sunscreen when my family was at the pool or planning to be outdoors — but if we were eating outdoors and there wasn’t a table in the shade, I would end up sitting in the sun.”
Now, Weiner said she will wait a little longer for a shaded table, and she always keeps a hat and sunscreen with her.
“My sons used to have difficulty applying sunscreen and wearing hats, but now that they’ve seen the impact skin cancer had on me, they are more cooperative,” she said.
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Weiner also recommends that everyone gets yearly skin checks with a board-certified dermatologist.
“I have so many friends — and even my sister, who probably saved my life — who didn’t regularly see a dermatologist for a yearly skin check before they learned about my melanoma.”
One beach lover’s story
Steve Murray, 68, of the greater Washington, D.C. area, has worked in construction for several decades.
During his childhood, Murray spent summers at the beach in Ocean City, New Jersey, and winter visits to Florida, where he was exposed to the sun and didn’t do much to protect himself.
In the late 1990s, Murray was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma, the most common type of skin cancer, and squamous cell carcinoma, a variation of skin cancer that tends to develop in people who have had a lot of sun exposure.
In 2008, he was diagnosed with melanoma.
“My initial symptoms included itching and scaling on my head, followed by irritation,” he told Fox News Digital.
“Then there was discoloration and irregularity in the shape of my moles.”
“You don’t notice at the time of initial exposure, but it haunts you later in life.”
Initially, Murray feared the worst — “mainly death” — but his dermatologist determined that the melanoma was only on his scalp and hadn’t traveled to his lymph nodes.
Like Weiner, Murray had Mohs surgery to get rid of the cancer — and he was cleared.
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Since that diagnosis, Murray has had several more bouts of skin cancer.
In 2024, he underwent two surgeries for squamous cell carcinoma on his hand and back.
Now, Murray visits the dermatologist every three to six months. Also, he always wears a hat, sunscreen and long sleeves whenever possible to protect himself from the sun.
Abby Weiner is pictured with her three young sons. “My sons used to have difficulty applying sunscreen and wearing hats, but now that they’ve seen the impact skin cancer had on me, they are more cooperative,” she said. (Abby Weiner)
Murray’s advice to others is to make sun protection a priority when outdoors.
“You don’t notice at the time of initial exposure, but it haunts you later in life when you start developing pre-cancers and skin cancers like squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma that require immediate attention,” he told Fox News Digital.
“Capturing these pre-cancers and cancers of the skin must be diagnosed early with regular checkups,” he added. “Failure to do so could lead to death.”
5 protection tips from an expert
Dr. Lee of NYU Langone Health shared five tips to help prevent potentially deadly skin cancers like melanoma.
1. Skip the sunbathing
“Avoiding a burn is really only half the battle — there is no such thing as a base tan,” Lee said. “Damaged skin is damaged skin.”
For a safer way to achieve a sun-kissed glow on your first beach day of the summer, Lee recommends using self-tanning products.
2. Wear sunscreen every day, in all weather and in every season
When applying sunscreen, Lee recommends using 1 ounce, which would fill a shot glass.
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“It should have a sun protection factor (SPF) of 30 and say ‘broad-spectrum’ on the label, which protects against the sun’s UVA and UVB rays,” she said.
Reapply at least every 80 minutes, or more often if you’re sweating or swimming.
3. Use physical sunscreen
Physical sunscreen contains zinc or titanium, which is superior in efficacy to chemical sunscreen, according to Lee.
4. Learn how to do a skin self-exam
“Check your skin regularly so you know what’s normal and to notice any changes or new growths,” Lee advised.
“Not all melanomas are dark and scary-appearing,” a doctor said. “They can be amelanotic, which means they can be more skin colored or pink.” (iStock)
“Seek a dermatologist’s evaluation if you notice a changing, bleeding or persistently itchy spot.”
5. Apply the ABCDE rule
This is the best way to determine if any mole or blemish is cancerous, according to Lee.
The ABCDE rule tells you what to look for when examining your skin.
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The A stands for asymmetrical. “Noncancerous moles are typically symmetrical,” Lee said.
B is for border, as the border of a cancerous spot or mole may be irregular or blurred.
The ABCDE rule is the best way to determine if any mole or blemish is cancerous, according to a dermatologist. (iStock)
C stands for color. “A typical mole tends to be evenly colored, usually a single shade of brown,” Lee noted.
“Not all melanomas are dark and scary-appearing. They can be amelanotic, which means they can be more skin colored or pink.”
D stands for diameter of the spot or mole, which may be a warning sign if it’s larger than 6 millimeters, according to Lee.
If the spot is evolving, which is what E stands for, it might be of concern.
Lee added, “Because melanomas can vary in appearance, it is important to see a dermatologist regularly for skin exams if you have a history of significant sun exposure, have many atypical appearing moles, or a family or personal history of melanoma so that you have an experienced set of eyes looking at any spots of concern.”
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A young woman who started vaping at the age of 15 has been given just 18 months to live — after being diagnosed with lung cancer in her early 20s.
Kayley Boda, 22, of Manchester, in the United Kingdom, was engaging in heavy vaping on a regular basis when she started coughing up a brown substance with “grainy bits” in it in January 2025, news agency SWNS reported.
The retail assistant said doctors turned her away eight times, telling her she had a chest infection — until she began coughing up blood.
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After seven biopsies, Boda was diagnosed with lung cancer. She underwent surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy — and in February 2026, got the all-clear, the same source reported.
Two months later, though, doctors said the cancer had come back in the pleural lining. Now she’s been given 18 months to live.
Kayley Boda, 22, is shown in the hospital. She started coughing up a brown substance with “grainy bits” in January 2025, she said. She had been vaping since the age of 15. (SWNS)
The young woman has now issued a warning to others to be aware of the dangers of vaping.
Boda said she smoked a bit as a young teenager. She took up vaping after that.
Then, “a few months after I switched from reusable vapes to disposable ones, I started coughing up brown, grainy mucus,” as SWNS reported.
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“Doctors turned me away eight times with a chest infection. … Then I started coughing up blood, so they did an X-ray and found a shadow on my lung,” she added.
“They told me they were 99% sure, [since I was] so young, that it wasn’t cancer, so not to worry about it. When I got the results back, and they told me it was lung cancer, it felt so surreal.”
Boda said she was “very naive” before her diagnosis and thought that “something like this would never happen to me.”
She said that she had surgery to remove half of her right lung.
“After the surgery, I started chemo and I had a terrible reaction to it. I couldn’t lift my head up. I was throwing up blood. I was urinating blood. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep.”
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She said that when she got the “all clear [in Feb. 2026], it felt amazing, but just two months later I was told the cancer had come back, and I have 18 months to live.”
She added, “I’m 22. This isn’t meant to happen to somebody my age.”
“Stay off the vapes because they will catch up with you.”
She blames her cancer on vaping, she said.
“My symptoms started a few months after I started disposable vapes, and there’s no lung cancer in my family,” she said. “I haven’t vaped for three months, I’ve made my partner stop, I’ve made my mom stop, I’m urging all my friends to stop. Stay off the vapes,” she continued, “because they will catch up with you.”
When doctors did an X-ray, they found a shadow on Boda’s right lung. She was later diagnosed with lung cancer and has undergone surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy. (SWNS)
She said she’d been using reusable vapes since the age of 15 and began using disposable vapes a few months before her cancer symptoms started.
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In November 2024, when she developed a rash all over her body, doctors said it could have been due to shingles, chicken pox or scabies, she told SWNS.
‘Nothing worked’
“I got treated for all three, and nothing worked,” Boda said. “It got to the point where I was cutting myself from scratching so hard.”
A few months after that, she began coughing up a dark brown mucus, with “grainy bits, the consistency of sugar, in it,” she said. When the coughing continued, she visited the doctor’s office, but was told it could be scarring from pneumonia or a chest infection, she also said.
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It wasn’t until March 2025 that she began coughing up bright red blood. At that point, doctors gave her a chest X-ray and told her they’d found a shadow on her lower right lung.
Over the next four months, she had seven biopsies as doctors took samples from the “shadow.” In August, when she went to get the results, she was told she had stage one lung cancer.
Boda is shown in the hospital. She was diagnosed with lung cancer and had surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy. (SWNS)
In September 2025, she had surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, and the surrounding lymph nodes. During the surgery, doctors upstaged her cancer from stage one to stage three after finding cancer in six surrounding lymph nodes, she said.
Following the surgery, Boda was unable to breathe properly and had to learn to walk all over again.
“The oncologist said this is so rare.”
After finishing chemotherapy in February 2026, Kayley was given the all clear, leaving her feeling elated.
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However, just a month after that, she began experiencing extreme chest pains and was told by doctors she had a pleural effusion — a build-up of fluid in the lungs. She had the fluid removed, but when doctors tested it, they discovered her cancer had returned to the pleural lining of her lungs, giving her 18 months to live.
“The oncologist said this is so rare, and usually something they see in patients that are 80 years old,” she said, as SWNS reported.
Increasingly, vacation hot spots are enforcing strict bans on the use of e-cigarettes in public venues. (iStock)
Boda claimed that doctors were unable to pin her cancer to a specific cause — but told her that smoking and vaping definitely didn’t help.
Since her diagnosis, she has stopped and is urging others to stop, too.
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She’s hoping to raise the thousands of dollars needed for treatment to try to prolong her life, she said.
Last year, Fox News Digital reported on the case of a Pennsylvania woman, 26, who said she vaped for just one year before her lungs collapsed. She was 22 when she took up the habit, she said in an interview.
“Everybody warned me about it, but I didn’t listen — I wish that I did,” she said.
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Dr. David Campbell, clinical director and program director at Recover Together Bend in Oregon, told Fox News Digital at that time that signs of collapsed lungs include sharp chest or shoulder pain, shortness of breath and difficulty breathing.
Lung issues are just one of the many health issues linked to vaping, he warned. The habit can also increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, as well as exposure to harmful heavy metals.
Melissa Rudy of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.
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The key to feeling better in a fast, overstimulated world might be surprisingly simple: Live a little more like your grandparents.
A growing social media trend, dubbed “nonnamaxxing,” draws inspiration from the slower, more intentional rhythms associated with an Italian grandmother.
The lifestyle is often linked to activities like preparing home-cooked meals, spending time outdoors and making meaningful connections.
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“Nonnamaxxing is a 2026 trend that embraces the slower, more intentional lifestyle of an Italian grandmother (a Nonna). Think cooking from scratch, long family meals, daily walks, gardening and less screen time,” Erin Palinski-Wade, a New Jersey-based registered dietitian, told Fox News Digital.
Nonnamaxxing, derived from the name for an Italian grandmother, is a trend that incorporates lifestyle habits hundreds of years in the making. (iStock)
Stepping away from screens and toward real-world interaction can have measurable benefits, according to California-based psychotherapist Laurie Singer.
“We know that interacting with others in person, rather than spending time on screens, significantly improves mental health,” she told Fox News Digital, adding that social media often fuels comparison and lowers self-esteem.
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Living more like previous generations isn’t purely driven by nostalgia. Cooking meals from scratch, for example, has been linked to better nutrition and more mindful eating patterns.
Adopting traditional mealtime habits can improve diet quality and support both physical and mental health, especially when meals are shared regularly with others, Palinski-Wade noted.
One longevity expert stresses that staying healthy isn’t just about food — it’s also about joy and community. (iStock)
There’s also a psychological benefit to slowing down and focusing on one task at a time. Anxiety often stems from unfinished or avoided tasks, Singer noted, and engaging in hands-on activities can counteract that.
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“Nonnamaxxing encourages us to be present around a task, like gardening, baking or knitting, or just taking a mindful walk, that delivers something ‘real,’” she said.
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Palinski-Wade cautions against turning the trend into another source of pressure, noting that a traditional “nonna” lifestyle often assumes a different pace of life.
The key, she said, is adapting the mindset, not replicating it perfectly.
Nonnamaxxing, derived from the name for an Italian grandmother, is a trend that incorporates lifestyle habits hundreds of years in the making. (iStock)
The goal is to reintroduce small, intentional moments that make you feel better.
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That might mean prioritizing a few shared meals each week, taking a walk without your phone or setting aside time for a simple hobby, the expert recommended.
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Singer added, “Having a positive place to escape to, through whatever activities speak to us and make us happy, isn’t generational – it’s human.”
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Feeling lonely may take a toll on older adults’ memory — but it may not speed up cognitive decline, according to a new study.
Researchers from Colombia, Spain and Sweden analyzed data from more than 10,000 adults ages 65 to 94 across 12 European countries and found those who reported higher levels of loneliness did worse on memory tests at the start of the study, according to research published this month in the journal Aging & Mental Health.
Over a seven-year period, however, memory decline occurred at a similar rate regardless of how lonely participants felt.
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“The finding that loneliness significantly impacted memory, but not the speed of decline in memory over time was a surprising outcome,” lead author Dr. Luis Carlos Venegas-Sanabria of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario said in a statement.
Loneliness may be linked to memory performance in older adults, a new study suggests. (iStock)
“It suggests that loneliness may play a more prominent role in the initial state of memory than in its progressive decline,” Venegas-Sanabria said, adding that the findings highlight the importance of addressing loneliness as a factor in cognitive performance.
The findings add to debate about whether loneliness contributes to dementia risk. While loneliness and social isolation are often considered risk factors for cognitive decline, research results have been mixed.
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The study looked at data from the long-running Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which tracked 10,217 older adults between 2012 and 2019. Participants were asked to recall words immediately and after a delay to measure memory performance.
Social isolation and loneliness could play a surprising role in cognitive health among seniors. (iStock)
Loneliness was assessed using three questions about how often participants felt isolated, left out or lacking companionship.
About 8% of participants reported high levels of loneliness at the outset. That group tended to be older, more likely to be female and more likely to have conditions such as depression.
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Researchers found that those with higher loneliness had lower scores on both immediate and delayed memory tests at baseline. Still, all groups — regardless of loneliness level — experienced similar declines in memory over time.
The results suggest loneliness may not directly accelerate the progression of memory loss, though it remains linked to poorer cognitive performance overall.
Researchers look at a brain scan at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Experts warn, however, that the findings should not be interpreted to mean loneliness is harmless.
“The finding that lonely older adults start with worse memory but don’t decline faster is actually the most interesting part of the paper, and I think it’s easy to misread,” said Jordan Weiss, Ph.D., a scientific advisor and aging expert at Assisted Living Magazine and a professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
“It likely means loneliness does its damage earlier in life, well before people show up in a study like this at 65-plus,” Weiss told Fox News Digital.
By older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold, an aging expert says. (iStock)
He suggested that by older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold.
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“By the time you’re measuring someone in their late 60s, decades of social connection patterns are already baked in,” he said.
Weiss, who was not involved in the research, added that loneliness may coincide with other health conditions, and noted that participants who felt more isolated also had higher rates of depression, high-blood pressure and diabetes. The link, he said, may reflect a cluster of health risks rather than a direct cause.
“While they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia,” a psychotherapist says. (iStock)
Amy Morin, a Florida-based psychotherapist and author, said the findings reflect a broader pattern in research on loneliness and brain health, and that the relationship may be more complex than it appears.
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“The evidence shows there’s a link between loneliness and cognitive decline but there’s no direct evidence of a cause and effect relationship,” she said. “So while they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia.”
Morin added that loneliness, which can fluctuate, may not be the root of the problem, but rather a symptom of other underlying mental or physical health issues.
Researchers suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging. (iStock)
She said staying socially and mentally engaged is crucial for overall brain health.
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“It’s important to be proactive about social activities,” Morin said. “Joining a book club, having coffee with a friend, or attending faith-based services can be a powerful way to maintain connections in older age.”
The researchers also suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.
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