Katherine Ryan, 41, diagnosed with cancer as comedian delves into health ordeal: ‘Actually really worried!’
Comedian Katherine Ryan has revealed she has been diagnosed with melanoma, a form of skin cancer.
The 41-year-old made the announcement on the latest episode of her podcast.
This marks the second time Ryan has been diagnosed with the disease having been diagnosed in her 20s when living in Canada.
After delving into the previous ordeal with melanoma on her leg, Ryan began to discuss similar fears after spotting a mark on her arm.
She said on Katherine Ryan: Telling Everybody Everything: “If you know about melanoma, you’ll know it is a deadly form of skin cancer, it does spread quickly – and I just felt like this mole wasn’t right.
“It’s on my arm… I shared pictures on my social media, I went in (to the doctor) and I wanted the doctor to remove a bigger piece of it and stitch it up in a straight line.
“But even when he looked at it, he was like, ‘It’s not melanoma, totally fine, I’ll do the shave and send it away for histology, and then if it comes back with anything we missed then we’ll do the deeper cut.’
“And even then I was like, ‘Just do the deeper cut, just do it,’ and he was like, ‘Well, it’s half the price for you, you don’t need the deeper cut, let’s just take it and we’ll test it.’ I was like, ‘Alright, fine.'”
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Explaining she had only received the news today, Ryan continued: “So he rang me today and it did come back melanoma.
“And it’s early melanoma and he was shocked, he was like, ‘It doesn’t look like melanoma but it is melanoma and you need to come back on Monday.’
“I don’t have time on Monday, but luckily he made some time for me in the afternoon.
“I don’t see this ever happening with the NHS, I don’t mean to dog the NHS I just think they’re obviously over-subscribed.”
Reflecting on how glad she is that she pressed the issue rather than accepting the doctors’ initial advice, the comedian went on: “So I’m very lucky to have access to this clinic who are happy to do the extra removal for me.
“But it just feels crazy to me like, what could have happened if I hadn’t been my own advocate, and I will continue to be my own advocate.
“If I hadn’t pushed, if I had taken that good answer the first time and walked away, then I would have had melanoma just growing and spreading in my arm and I would say, ‘Oh no, the doctor said it’s fine, it’s fine,’ and god knows how far that would have gone.”