Turns out that many of you, like us, are survivors or family members of survivors of skin cancer, and have been gracious enough to share your stories and experiences with us. It’s been both heartbreaking and inspiring to hear your stories of struggle and loss, but also of triumph. Today, we’d like to share the story of one of our own, Kory Feltz a.k.a. @Burnt.Freckle:

I was only 27 when I was diagnosed with skin cancer the first time. A golf-ball sized Squamous Cell Carcinoma on my calf. I was an avid tanner growing up. My three older sisters taught me all of the tricks: a stick of butter, Crisco, iodine, using foil, the closer to the sun the better, the right times of the day. I was always the“three burns and then you tan better” kind of girl. Burn I did. Many times. Often blistering.

Soon I would be diagnosed with two more skin cancers. Basal Cell Carcinomas. One on my leg and one on my lip. I wish I could say that this was the wake up call for me. But it wasn’t. I continued to avoid sunscreen.

I didn’t wake up until I was 36. What looked like a large red pimple on my lip wouldn’t pop, and I knew it was more cancer. When the biopsy results came back, I was sent to a plastic surgeon and underwent more than five hours of surgery to have the cancerous region removed.

That included half of my lip and part of my cheek. To close the opening, he had to attach what remained of my upper lip to the ball of my cheek, stretching my mouth and nose to one side of my face.

That was my wakeup call.