Adam, 44, was first diagnosed with melanoma in 2013 and has faced the deadly skin cancer’s return twice in the decade since. The father of two shares his experience with the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia, the scientific advances that have saved his life and his advice for young men spending time in the sun.
Most of my life has been spent on the coast somewhere with a lot of time in the ocean and backyard pool. We’re a fair-skinned family and as I grew up my mum was really militant with sunscreen. We weren’t allowed to start the day without it. Even at school, you couldn’t go out of the shade unless you had a hat.
As I got into my teenage years I was less careful. I used to go surfing every morning and afternoon and as soon as it was up to me, I thought less about wearing sunscreen and more about trying to have a suntan, which I thought was as cool as I could look.
I knew about sun safety but I didn’t know how big of a killer skin cancer could be. I figured that if you got skin cancer, you’d go get it cut out and the worst-case scenario was ending up with some scars.
When I met my wife, she encouraged me to get regular skin checks because of how fair my skin was and how many freckles and moles I had. So I started going once a year. Although I was going to the doctor regularly, I still wasn’t listening to my wife about wearing sunscreen as much as I should. I was still chasing a tan even into my early thirties.
“Not long after one of my skin checks my wife noticed a mole right next to a tattoo I had on my back. It looked a bit funny but I’d just had a check so I thought it was fine. But over a few weeks, it got worse and looked more raised and scab-like. So, I eventually got it looked at.”
They did a biopsy and when I went back a week later, they told me it was melanoma. It had gone deep enough that it was in my lymphatic system and that I needed further biopsies to see how much further it had spread. That day I was sent to the Melanoma Institute to see the plastic surgeon there about the next biopsy process. When it was explained what needed to happen, I knew it was serious. I was quite worried and my wife, mum and sister were really worried. But I still didn’t realise how significant it might actually be.
I don’t know if it was me not being prepared to accept it, but I just kept thinking that everything was going to be okay. I tried to manage it in a way that helped everyone around me think it wasn’t that serious.
Another week after that they confirmed it had spread to the primary lymph node under my left arm.
I needed to have a bilateral dissection, which involved removing all of the lymph nodes from my left and right side. That surgery left me with a scar around 40 centimetres long from my armpit to my lower abdomen and I spent the summer with drains coming out of it and a nurse came around daily to remove the fluids my body could no longer circulate. After about two weeks the results came back to confirm there was no further evidence of melanoma in the Lymph nodes that had been removed and I was given the all clear.
After that, my wife and I decided we didn’t want to let it really hold us back and that we needed to move forward and do all the things we wanted to do in life. We got engaged that year, my wife got pregnant with our first son Harry. She was eight months pregnant when she saw a small, marble-size lump right next to the scar tissue from the surgery I’d had.
I went to the specialist and they said the melanoma had metastasised. This is not completely uncommon. It may have just been something they didn’t pick up. I did a CT, I did a PET scan, I did a MRI and the results showed that it had spread into my lungs. It was a stage four diagnosis.
I was very aware that it might be the start of the end, at that point. Right when we were about to start a family.
There were no surgery options available then, but I was referred to Professor Georgina Long – who’s gone on to win Australian of the year with her fellow researcher, Professor Richard Scolyer – to talk about some of the immunotherapy drug trials that were happening. Based on my results, I wasn’t able to take part in any of the existing trials. They weren’t going to help me. She said my best option was to try and wait while they sought final approval for a new trial that would be the first of two combined immunotherapy drugs. We waited for about six weeks doing a scan each week and each week the tumours on my lungs were getting bigger.
In this period our first baby was born. I was trying to be happy but really struggling because we didn’t know what was going to happen.
The approval process was taking too long and they just needed to start something so they decided they’d start me on what would be best. But the next day I got the call to tell me the trial would be approved and I’d be the first Australian to try it. Professor Long is particularly good at creating hope in a really dire situation. It was scary, but I was hopeful and I tried to create that hope in my family as well. We had the baby to distract all of us and that was probably a blessing in disguise. He arrived at the right time when we really needed something that wasn’t doom and gloom.
Four weeks later I started the trial and I was lucky I didn’t experience any side effects. Aside from taking a day out of my life every three weeks to have the treatment administered through an IV, my life really carried on as normal.
“At the first, three-month scan the tumours had already reduced by 50%. At six months they were barely visible. The scans I had done almost at the 12-month mark, in the lead-up to my wedding, I was told that there was no evidence of any melanoma at all.”
I kept that a secret and was able to announce that at my wedding where we had 120 of our closest friends and family. That was quite a happy moment for all of us. That immunotherapy treatment was two years long and then I remained under observation.
In 2018 we lost my younger brother to oesophageal cancer. He was 32. Out of everything I’ve experienced, grieving him was the hardest. It still is, to be honest. Six months after he passed I had some more scans that showed a melanoma on my brain and I remember thinking, that’s definitely it for me now.
I got a call from Georgina basically saying, ‘Adam, I know how bad this sounds, but I just want you to know that we’ve got options and there’s still a lot of hope there. I want you to know that it’s not the end’. When I met with the Melanoma Institute a couple of days after my diagnosis, they already had a plan. I was booked for brain surgery to remove the tumour and I’d be back on the original immunotherapy treatment after that.
That was a particularly dark time in my life, dealing with my returned cancer diagnosis layered with trying to work out how to grieve for my younger brother.
Currently, I am still a patient of the immunotherapy trial. I am off treatment and under observation and I have a CT and MRI every four months which is followed up with a consult meeting with my oncologist, Dr Georgina Long. Once a year, a have full PET scan. The regular scans and doctors appointments does give me peace of mind I’m being looked after.
Melanoma is going to be in my life forever and when I say that, it’s not just about when it’s going to come back or when it’s going to kill me but not now, being an advocate. Finding ways to share my story because if it can help just one person avoid the experience that my family’s had I’ll do it. My wife organises the Melanoma March on the Central Coast each year, which helps raise money for the research that’s kept me alive.
Choosing not to wear sun protection because you want to try and get a suntan or you think you’ll be better looking or whatever the case may be, is stupid. And I obviously learned that the hard way. Try to avoid the direct sun when you don’t have sun protection, regardless of what skin type you have, is the strongest message I can send to anyone. And it’s really important to start at a young age. Making skin checks as regular as going to the dentist is also critical.
Melanoma Institute Australia is dedicated to preventing and curing melanoma through innovative, world-class research, treatment and education programs. Their major fundraising event — Melanoma March — takes places across the country on Sunday 30 march, 2025. Find out more information and share your support here.
