A woman faces leaving her four children without a mother after a subtle change in her fingernail turned out to be aggressive skin cancer that spread to her brain.
Kelly Heather, 38, from Kent, first noticed a faint, dark line in the middle of her fingernail in 2017, and visited her GP for advice.
But after a series of tests, she was assured that the bizarre mark was nothing sinister.
Within three months, however, the line on her finger got darker and thicker, which prompted another trip to the doctors and an eventual referral to skin specialists.
A biopsy revealed devastating news — Ms Heather had melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
When the disease starts under the nail it is known medically as subungual melanoma and typically presents as streaks or bruises on the nail bed that do not heal or grow out.
It’s thought that subungual melanomas make up roughly two per cent of the 17,500 cases that are diagnosed in the UK every year.
Ms Heather had her nail bed removed at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, West Sussex, and was told the surgery had gone well with no cancer left behind.
Kelly Heather has seen her cancer return twice, and is now suffering metastatic disease that’s spread to her brain.
But within six months, something which looked like a verruca appeared at the end of the finger — a signal that the cancer had returned.
Doctors told her she would need to have her finger partially amputated to ensure all the disease was removed.
‘I said whatever you need just take it. I’d rather that than it spread anywhere else,’ she said.
She underwent the life-changing operation in March 2020 and was given the ‘all-clear’, with doctors claiming her disease was highly unlikely to spread.
Despite this, Ms Heather asked for further scans to ensure no cells were left behind, but her request was refused.
Just over two years later, in August 2022, she discovered a lump in her armpit.
A series of tests confirmed that the cancer had returned, this time spreading to the lymph nodes under her arm — glands responsible for clearing waste products from the body.
She subsequently underwent major surgery in which 20 lymph nodes were removed.
The line on Ms Heather’s fingernail began as a faint mark but soon developed into a darker streak.
Doctors then broke the gut-wrenching news that her disease was now metastatic melanoma — a type of skin cancer which has spread to a different part of the body.
But after undergoing a year of immunotherapy treatment, Ms Heather’s scans came back clear again, suggesting the disease had been successfully eradicated once more.
In April 2024, she was told she did not require a second year of immunotherapy and was classed as in remission.
Two weeks later, she found out she was pregnant with her fourth child.
But at 35 weeks pregnant, she found she was having trouble lifting her left leg properly.
She said: ‘My leg started flicking out and shaking uncontrollably, and within not even a minute, I was having a full seizure in the kitchen.
‘I honestly thought I had died. I thought I was dying and all I could think was my kids have lost their mum and my baby is going to die.
‘It’s one of the most traumatic things I’ve ever gone through.’
She was diagnosed with brain cancer just weeks before giving birth to her fourth child
She said: ‘They removed most of the tumour, but they couldn’t remove all of it without causing permanent paralysis to my left side.’
Scans of Ms Heather’s brain revealed a tumour nestled inside the organ, which had the same genetic profiling of her initial melanoma cancer.
Doctors diagnosed stage 4 metastatic melanoma. Only one in five patients survive this stage of the disease for longer than five years.
Reflecting on her ordeal, Ms Heather wondered if the outcome would have been different, had she undergone the scans she requested after her first diagnosis.
‘Melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer and it doesn’t follow rules of what all the other cancers follow,’ she said.
‘They wouldn’t give me that extra peace of mind by having those further scans, and I think [the cancer] would have been picked up a lot earlier, before it went into my lymphatic system, which is where it spread quite quickly.
‘I do wonder what would have happened if I got that one scan I begged for.
‘I feel things could have been dealt with differently and I might be in a different position to what I am now.’
She gave birth to her fourth child Te-Jay on December 9 and less than 10 days later, underwent brain surgery to remove the tumour.
Ms Heather also underwent surgery to remove 20 of her lymph nodes – glands under the arm that help remove toxins from the body
She said: ‘They removed most of the tumour, but they couldn’t remove all of it without causing permanent paralysis to my left side.
‘So, a small part was left behind, which is why I have to have the targeted radiotherapy to kill the remaining tumour left in the brain.’
Heartbreakingly, she was told there’s a 25 per cent chance the cancer would spread to her baby via the placenta.
Tests have come back clear so far but Te-Jay is being regularly monitored at Guy’s Hospital.
‘It’s just another worry,’ she said. ‘No mum would ever want to think that they’ve possibly spread a cancer to their baby.’
With a newborn to look after, she is now starting a new treatment which includes two separate immunotherapy drugs.
‘It is the only treatment that is available,’ she said. ‘There’s a 50 per cent chance it will work for me. It’s very much hit and miss so it’s quite scary.
‘I don’t think I’ve fully accepted that I have terminal cancer.
‘Really, I should have continued to have the second year of treatment and that would have probably kept it at bay.
‘But now I’m waiting for where it’s going to show up next.’
Despite her diagnosis, Ms Heather is determined to ‘stay positive’ for her partner Tom Woodcock, and four children Preston, 17, Brendan, 15, Rhea, 7, and Te-Jay.
The family has set up a GoFundMe in order to raise funds for basic needs, as she has been forced to give up work due to her condition, and its affect on her mobility.
She also wants to speak out about further testing — as she believes her now stage 4 cancer may have been detected earlier if she had been granted another scan.
‘I am pushing for further testing to be given regardless of what stage you are at,’ she said.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust said: ‘Ensuring patients receive the right personalised cancer treatment as quickly as possible is our priority.
‘While we are unable to comment on individual cases, we encourage any patient who may have a question or concern to speak to the clinical teams providing their care or our Patient Advice and Liaison Service.’
Queen Victoria Hospital has been contacted for a comment.
