A tiny freckle on my face turned out to be cancer. Here’s why most doctors would have missed it and exact test you need to ask for
Juliah Thompson had always had a lot of moles. So when another one appeared on her face, she ignored it.
‘It was on my upper right cheekbone,’ she told Daily Mail, ‘but, honestly, I thought nothing of it’.
‘I thought it was just a new freckle I had gotten, if I’m being honest. I just thought, ugh, ok, I was in the sun too much.’
The 21-year-old Arizona native took great care of her skin. She lathered on sunscreen and moisturizer every morning, and always ensured to wear a hat or long sleeves outside.
The spot was tiny, barely bigger than a pinhead — when she first noticed it in September 2025. It was easily covered with foundation, smooth with a clear border, and showed none of the warning signs typical of skin cancer. Her mother told her to keep an eye on it.
Over the next three months, Thompson said the mole started to change — turning darker and growing in size.
By the time she graduated from veterinary school in December, it had swollen to roughly the size of a pea.
Becoming concerned, in February 2026, she booked an appointment with her dermatologist, who was ‘immediately’ worried, she said, and ordered a biopsy.
One week later she got an unexpected diagnosis: Melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer. It was at stage zero, but growing fast.
If melanoma is left untreated and spreads, statistics show just 34 percent of patients survive for five years or more.
Her dermatologist said the mole would need to be removed right away in a surgery that would require making a two-inch cut in her face, leaving her with a permanent scar.
Juliah Thompson, 21, from Arizona, is shown in January 2026, where she had a mole on her right cheekbone
Her dermatologist, Dr Michael Christopher, told Daily Mail that about 80 percent of doctors would have missed her cancer because they would have only relied on a naked-eye examination on the spot.
In his practice, however, he uses a dermatoscope, a device from the 1980s that allows doctors to zoom in on a piece of skin as though they had a magnifying glass, that can reveal any worrying changes.
He said this showed that the spot had an irregular border and varied pigmentation, warning signs of cancer, that prompted him to order a biopsy.
Christopher said he posted photos of the spot as seen by the naked eye in a dermatologists group and asked whether others would order a biopsy. Only twenty percent of respondents said they would.
‘I never thought anything of it, because there’s like, no way it could come back as something crazy,’ she told Daily Mail.
‘When he told me over the phone, I was in shock. I don’t even remember the phone call, because all I kept thinking in my head was, “Oh my gosh, I have skin cancer”.’
Christopher recommended that she have it surgically removed and referred her to a plastic surgeon. Two days after the diagnosis, the spot was cut out.
Melanomas can grow rapidly and become more advanced within weeks.
Thompson is shown above at her examination, with the mole visible on her right cheekbone. On the left is the mole shown under a dermatoscope
Two days after her diagnosis, Thompson had surgery to have the mole removed. It involved making an incision in her face as long as the base of an iPhone to take out the cancer
Doctors aim to remove melanoma before it becomes life-threatening and spreads to other organs.
About 110,000 Americans are diagnosed with melanoma every year, the second most common type of skin cancer.
It is behind more than 80 percent of the 8,500 deaths from skin cancer recorded in the US every year.
Melanoma cases are rising globally and in the US. Estimates suggest that in 2025 alone, cases will have risen by 5.9 percent.
The cancer is almost always linked to sun damage.
‘I have fair skin,’ Thompson told Daily Mail, ‘I try and be super aware of when I’m going into the sun and applying sunscreen as well.
‘Living in southern Arizona, we have a lot of sun. It’s sunny most days of the year.’
She struggled with severe acne in her teenage years, she added, which has led her to photograph her face every month to track whether it is returning. That is what led her to first notice the spot.
Some studies suggest that suffering from acne may raise the risk of melanoma because it can cause damaging mutations in cells, increasing the likelihood that they may turn cancerous.
A week after her surgery, Thompson had her stitches removed. She is now three weeks on from the procedure and says it is healing well, although it may leave a scar.
Thompson is shown above on March 11, 1 week post her surgery and after her stitches were removed. Doctors warned that she may be left with a scar on her face
‘It’ll take a good year to heal, is my guess,’ she told Daily Mail. ‘I have no feeling about having it. I think it’s awesome that I get to tell my story to people when they ask’.
‘Skin cancer screening requires a full body dermatoscopic exam on every pink and pigmented spot,’ Christopher told Daily Mail.
‘If that is not being done… there is no way I would be comfortable with having an exam any other way.’
To monitor for melanoma, Christopher said that patients should be familiar with all the spots on their body and the location of moles.
He said that if there was a new mole that was changing or one that looked different from the rest, then patients should book to see a dermatologist.
Dermatologists recommend the ABCDE rule for detecting melanoma, which stands for Asymmetry, Border, Color, Diameter and Evolving.
They say patients should be concerned about a spot if it is asymmetric, where one half does not match the other, has an irregular border, with uneven and blurred edges, has multiple colors or shades, is larger than an eraser on the tip of a pencil and is changing.
‘All I’m trying to do is make sure that people are taken care of appropriately,’ Christopher added.
‘Skin cancer screening requires a full body dermatoscopic exam on every pink and pigmented spot.
‘If I didn’t have a dermatoscope to do this, I would cancel my clinic.’
