A BRAVE Ayr woman who had skin cancer surgically removed from her forehead has told how people would point and stare at her scar.

Rhiannon Wylie recently had an operation which involved a full reconstruction of her eyebrows and forehead in order to get rid of the cancerous cells.

At just 23 she was given the shock news that a small white mark on her forehead was a carcinoma - the least aggressive form of skin cancer.

But skin doctors at the dermatology unit in Crosshouse were unsure at first whether or not the mark was cancer, and it took an invasive biopsy to confirm the diagnosis.

Rhiannon told the Advertiser: “I had absolutely no idea it was cancer, I used to have a chicken pox scar on my forehead I thought it must have been a scar that’s spreading, but they said they had never seen a scar do that before, because it felt like scar tissue, that’s what it felt like, but it was a different texture.”

“Sometimes you do get scars that will form differently on your body and the only way to find out is to get a biopsy, but I thought I don’t really want a scar on top of this scar that I already have.”

In order to remove the mark which had grown to the size of a 10p piece a plastic surgeon had to carry out the complex procedure which left Rhiannon with horrific bruising and a massive scar across her forehead.

But the operation has been hailed as a success, as opposed to a more permanent skin graft, which the plastic surgeon wanted to avoid.

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Rhiannon added: “I was actually lying on the operating table when they decided right we’re going to need to do a skin graft, but he said nope I can’t do that to a girl who is 23 years old. I’m going to try my hardest so he managed, I can’t thank him enough. He actually had to reconstruct my eyebrows to be able to pull it in enough.

Following the operation Rhiannon had to face people staring at her for weeks as she tried to get on with her life whilst her wounds healed.

And she was mortified by one couple in an Ayr restaurant who both turned round to look at her.

She said: “For me to actually have a big scar on my forehead was completely terrifying for me. I have had people point at me in restaurants, not long after I had it done and I had two black eyes. I had a gentleman stare at me from the corner of my eye, he actually tapped his wife on the shoulder to get her to look at me. I had to walk out. I was with my sister at the time.”

Rhiannon wants other people to realise that there’s always a reason behind scars after her challenging experience.

She added: “When you see somebody walking down the street towards you with some form of disability or scar, it is horrible to be stared at.”

Rhiannon says she couldn’t have got through the ordeal without the support of her family and boyfriend.

Now she wants people to make sure they get checked if they are unsure about anything on their skin.

She said: “Anything at all that doesn’t seem right, just get answers for it. I was just lucky that mine wasn’t as aggressive as it could be.”