Sun-Loving Reporter Finds Skin Cancer

N E W   Y O R K, July 18 -- Television reporter Michelle Charlesworth was working on a news story when she got a lead she wasn't looking for — her own close-up look at skin cancer.

"I thought it was a pore or something but it turns out it was cancer," said Charlesworth, a 31-year-old anchor/reporter for WABC-TV in New York.

The discovery came in February, when she was in the office of dermatologist Dr. Bruce Katz, working on a story about liposuction. She would have ignored the mark on her face without going to a dermatologist, if not for the assignment.

"I only ended up in a doctor's office as a reporter — not as a patient," Charlesworth said. A photographer she was with asked Katz about a bump on his face, and she then asked about the mark on her own. Katz got his magnifying glass out and said, "I wanted to ask you about that." Thank God she did, Charlesworth said later.

"A biopsy came back two days later — basal cell carcinoma," Charlesworth said.

The problem was that doctors wouldn't know how much the cancer had spread until the skin was removed and tested.

Years of Tanning

"So this was not only a medical problem, it was also cosmetic," Charlesworth said. When she looked back to see how it happened, it wasn't hard to figure.

Every summer, as a child, she was out in the sun, soaking in rays. In her high school prom picture, her skin was also gloriously tan. And even the summer before she found out she had cancer, Charlesworth had the same bronzed look.

"I always thought that the biggest risk was premature aging," she said. "I never thought the sun would lead to surgery — much less 27 stitches."

The morning she was going in for the procedure to remove the cancer, Charlesworth was terrified.

"What they told me is that they're going to have to cut it out and then they might have to go up here and get more and flip it down. So then I am thinking it is this big [several inches long]. And I don't want something like that on my head," Charlesworth said.