Woman’s Realistic Skin Cancer Selfie Features Hazards of Frequent Tanning

This is a picture of Kentucky-born Tawny, a registered nurse, at the age of 27. In high school, she used the tanning bed 4-5 times a week. According to Tawny, she’s now had basal cell carcinoma 5 times & squamous cell carcinoma once.

Prepare yourself: Tawny posted a graphic photo of her skin cancer treatment to Facebook as an awareness tool. “If anyone needs a little motivation to not lie in the tanning bed and sun here ya go!” she writes. “This is what skin cancer treatment can look like.”

As said by Tawny Willoughby, she was first diagnosed with skin cancer at age 21, and now goes to the dermatologist every 6-12 months. The painful picture, showing bright red scabs and bloodied blisters, has been shared more than 66,000 times as a stunning warning about the hazards of skin cancer.

“Melanoma kills, non-melanoma disfigures,” she writes.

Tawny Willoughby sums it up in her Facebook post: “Wear sunscreen and get a spray tan. You only get one skin and you should take care of it,” she writes. “Learn from other people’s mistakes. Don’t let tanning prevent you from seeing your children grow up.”