Written by Vaibhav Tripathi
Sam Billings, the 31-year-old cricketer, has shared his experience of being diagnosed with malignant melanoma skin cancer and is encouraging others to take protecting their skin seriously. He believes that there is a British culture, especially among men, of being blasé about skin damage, and hopes that sharing his story will prompt people to think twice.
Billings had attended a skin cancer screening organised by Kent and a few other counties before he was diagnosed with cancer. During the screening, a doctor noticed a mole on his chest, which was later removed and found to be a melanoma that was 0.6mm deep. Had he not attended the screening or had left early to attend a meeting, the consequences have been far worse.
“I’ve been that classic Brit abroad,” Billings told Telegraph Sport, “as a 22-year-old with fairer hair in Australia thinking that it was worth going a bit red to end up brown. And at home you see it all the time, it gets to 12 degrees and sunny, all the tops come off. I didn’t think I’d be the guy who got skin damage. I hope people see my story and think twice.”
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“It’s a full body screening where they look at every mole,” Billings said. “There was one on my chest, by no means the biggest mole on my body, that the doctor, Andy Birnie, said didn’t look great. They decided I needed to have it removed so they could take a look at it.”
Two weeks after the screening, Billings received a call from the doctor’s receptionist, asking him to cancel his plans and come in the following morning. He then had a five-inch strip removed around where the mole had been under local anaesthetic and was home to begin his recovery the same night.
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“I didn’t sleep well that night,” he said. “In the morning Andy told me that I had a melanoma that was 0.6mm [deep]. The threshold of when it gets really serious is 0.7mm, so really close. If I had left that screening to go to the meeting, and waited until my next one six months down the line it could have been far, far more serious. The margins are so small but can have massive consequences.”
“I never realised how much your chest affects everything else,” he said and added, “just moving my arm was extremely painful. Mentally it was definitely more challenging than physically.”
Billings has shared his story with the cricket community and the British society at large to raise awareness of the dangers of skin cancer and to encourage people to take steps to protect themselves.
Billings, who is now fit and healthy, believes his experience has changed him both on and off the field.
“I’m not just talking about the pro game. It’s club cricketers, people who watch the game. I played at Lord’s recently and the sun was out, even if it wasn’t 25 degrees. It might only have been 18 but you can still get sunburnt. We treat it [applying suncream] like a bit of a chore, because the education around it isn’t as good as in countries like Australia. I’d like to see everyone in cricket working together: the sun is out, so let’s protect ourselves,” Billings concluded.