As we celebrate mothers across the country this weekend, one new mom is counting her blessings after a brush with skin cancer. Melissa Hernandez is the proud mother of healthy four month old twin boys. The 43-year-old has a lot to be thankful for this Mother’s Day.

 

At 7-months-pregnant she was diagnosed with a large basal cell carcinoma on her forehead.

 

I couldn’t have any treatment while I was pregnant and it did grow a little bit larger so the treatment I have to have is a little bit more because I had to wait to have it treated initially,” Melissa said.

 

About 5.5 million non-melanoma skin cancers are treated each year in the U.S.  Most are slow growing and treatable when caught early. Melissa worried about scarring.

 

Melissa said,  “I was very nervous because it was on my forehead.”  

 

She found Dr. Orit Markowitz at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York,  who uses non invasive devices to diagnose and guide skin cancer treatment. 

 

Melissa was treated with cosmetic lasers that don’t cut the skin.

 

“Then, we’re able to monitor her with noninvasive imaging to watch the tumor disappear and definitely to shrink it and hopefully in her case we will be able to eradicate it completely,”  Dr. Markowitz explained.

 

Melissa has had two treatments since her twins were born. You can barely see the scar up close  and it’s expected to fade even more.

 

A self described sun worshipper, she now intends to protect her boys skin as much as possible.

 

“Keeping my little boys healthy and out of the sun keeping their skin as porcelain white for as long as it can be,” she said.

 

Most skin cancers are from exposure to UV rays from the sun and tanning beds.