Catherine Smartt thought she had a pimple on her face — but it turned out to be the most dangerous type of skin cancer. The mum-of-three, from Geelong, would regularly get her skin checked but, as she would find out, not regularly enough. Last year, when a strange pimple showed up on her cheek, the pregnant 40-year-old at first didn’t think much of it. “It wasn’t a mole; it was nothing — until it wasn’t,” she says.
“Over time, my nose and lip will hopefully return to their normal position as they have been lifted due to the surgeries.” Catherine says she is still in the process of healing, with her last surgery only in February. “There’s a while to go before I can stop taping the scar and return to a normal day of getting up and applying my makeup,” she says.