A WOMAN who tried to ignore a growing spot on her chest which proved to be skin cancer last night urged people to always seek advice quickly.

Justine Sheils, a 36-year-old administrator, from Maghull, Liverpool, began using sunbeds when she was 15.

But she was not screened for several years and even tried to ignore a spot on her chest for 18 months. By then, she was suffering from a carcinoma that took her to death’s door.

She said: “I didn’t even consider skin cancer. It was just when I got into the doctor’s surgery that I saw a poster on the wall and I thought – you know what, that’s what I’ve got.

“I would advise anyone to get themselves checked out and screened if they’ve got any concerns whatsoever. If they’ve got anything that hasn’t been there before, go straight away.”

She believes this advice could have limited what has been a harrowing passage of time as she fought off cancer.

It all began simply by wanting just to fit in.

She said: “I can remember when we were all wearing long socks to school and all the other girls had lovely brown legs and I wanted to be like them.

“The tanning salon was near my school and I used to go in for sunbed sessions on my way home,” she added.

“There was always an occasion like a party or an outing when I had the excuse to top up my tan.”

Twenty years later, there are more shops and more youngsters using beds, she said.

“The beautician I go to now has sunbeds and when I go there I just want to take them aside and show them what it can do. I just want them to know and maybe make them think.

“They’re getting younger, I see girls of 14 or 15 in their school uniforms going into that same salon I used to use and they come out looking like lobsters.

“They all think something like cancer could never happen to them. But it happened to me.”

When she was 32, she was diagnosed with malignant mela- noma on her chest.

She said: “I ignored it for 18 months and it got worse. Then they said that was OK after treatment at Ormskirk and Aintree, and they found another on my back.”

In fact, Justine has undergone two major operations to remove cancerous tumours including one “the size of a golf ball” on the back of her head.

In one of the operat- ions, surgeons took muscle from her stomach and transplanted it onto her scalp.

She said: “I just want to do something to warn young people about the possible consequences of using sunbeds. If my story can stop one girl risking melanoma then something good will have come out of my cancer diagnosis.”