From tanning bed to deathbed.
A millennial obsessive about tanning feels lucky to be alive after discovering two cancerous moles — and she or he’s using her harrowing experience to share the risks of indoor tanning.
“I’ve probably used a sunbed hundreds of times in my life. It was an addiction, there’s little question about that,” Fionnghuala Maguire, 35, told Kennedy News and Media.
“My mom was diagnosed with skin cancer and needed to have a few tumors removed and used to inform me to stop using the sunbeds but you don’t listen, you think that you’re invincible,” the West Belfast resident lamented.
Maguire admits to using tanning beds routinely for greater than 15 years — even going as often as seven days every week for the final word glow.
She said she never applied sunscreen during that period.
“I’ve been a sunbed user since about 14,” Maguire explained. “Back then there wasn’t a lot of an age limit. I’d go quite naturally dark and having a tan gave me numerous confidence.”
But in 2020, she found a mole on her right leg that doctors decided to quickly remove on account of her family’s history of skin cancer.
After the procedure, Maguire was asked to return to the hospital, where she was told she had Stage 1 melanoma.
An even bigger segment of her skin needed to be cut away — and one other growth on her leg was discovered just three months later.
It was also confirmed as cancer, so Maguire endured immune-boosting treatment to fight the disease.
Unfortunately, she suffered an hostile response to the therapy — she developed Addison’s disease when her adrenal glands stopped producing enough hormones.
Shocking photos show Maguire’s face covered in red blotches following the cancer treatment, and she or he earned herself a visit to the emergency room in December 2021.
“Christmas 2021 I felt like I used to be going to die,” recalled Maguire, who’s mom to 10-year-old Fionn. “My sister took me to hospital and just needed to drop me off since it was [during the COVID-19 pandemic]. I didn’t know if I used to be going to see her again.”
She continued: “They checked my adrenal glands, they usually had stopped working. Right away I used to be pumped with a hydrocortisone steroid and inside that night I felt like a very different person.”
Maguire said a physician told her “that if there’d been one other day or two of my cortisone levels being that low, I’d’ve gone right into a coma and passed away.”
She underwent two more immunotherapy sessions, in May 2022, before developing capillary leak syndrome — a rare disorder characterised by a dramatic drop in blood pressure.
Previously two years, Maguire has had five more suspicious moles removed, from her breast, arm, leg, and back.
She sees her dermatologist every three months for full-body checks.
“I’m just living in fear of the subsequent mole coming now,” she sighed. “There’s a high probability that the skin cancer could come back at every point.”
Reflecting on her health battles, Maguire says a “tan shouldn’t be price” what she’s been through.
She said she’s indignant and will “give myself a slap” for using tanning beds.
“I’m now pale white. I don’t appear like myself — it was all right down to wanting tanned skin you could literally buy from a bottle,” she shared.
“Twice I’ve been on my deathbed, and my son could’ve been left and not using a mommy,” Maguire continued. “I’m still scared that wanting a tan might kill me eventually.”
Maguire’s comments come as Kim Kardashian, 43, recently defended herself from criticism for having a tanning bed in her office. She says it helps her psoriasis.