“WHAT’S that on your leg?” said my housemate. “You should get it checked.”

I was sitting on the sofa in a pair of shorts and leaned forward to look.

There was an irregular brown and black patch – with a bit of white – on my left leg.

I brushed it and felt nothing. It was flat. There was no pain. But it looked unusual.

“Oh that,” I said, slumping back. “I have had that for years.” At least, I hoped I’d had it for years.

I went through phases over the next few weeks of worrying then forgetting I had it.

I don’t go sunbathing. At 32, I wasn’t that old. So it couldn’t actually be cancer, could it?

Then I was in shorts again, throwing myself into my sister’s annual game of rounders in the park to celebrate her birthday. “You should get that checked,” said one sister, and then the other.

My blood froze. Yes, I should have got it checked. I looked at it properly for the first time in weeks. It was bigger. It really did not look normal at all anymore.

Pretty much straight away my GP gave me a fast track reference to a dermatologist.

“It could be a tumour,” he said.

Each of the 13 days waiting to see the dermatologist at Christchurch Hospital was torture.

Then came the appointment with the dermatologist. He examined my leg and diagnosed a suspected melanoma. I had a painless operation to remove it under local anaesthetic.

The results came back a week and a half later. I was dry retching all the way to the hospital car park. In the waiting room I came across a newspaper article on melanoma death rates.

The dermatologist told me my patch was a melanoma in situ, sometimes described as a pre-cancer. The cancer cells had been in the top layer of the skin.

That meant it had not reached the invasive stage, when it is more likely to spread around the body.

I needed a second operation as a precaution but my prognosis was excellent. I did not even need check-ups.

I could not have wished for more.

Far better people than me are faced with far worse news every day.

The second operation was carried out that same afternoon. All the staff were excellent and I left the hospital wanting to tell other people about the dangers and symptoms.

Don’t think it can’t happen to you, because it can.

Melanomas: what to look out for

Melanomas can appear anywhere on your body, but the back, legs, arms and face are the most common. They can also appear from existing moles.

Look for asymmetry, an irregular border, different colours, a diameter of more than 6mm, and changes in a pre-existing mole.

Melanoma is the second most common cancer in people aged 15 to 34.

It is aggressive and responsible for most skin cancer deaths.

Sunburn increases the risk.