Katherine Ryan shared a health update on Friday after undergoing her second surgery following her skin cancer diagnosis.
The comedian, 41, announced that she had been diagnosed with a cancerous mole on her arm last week, after having another melanoma when she was younger.
After having it removed privately last week, doctors discovered it was cancerous and she had to undergo another procedure to remove more of the surrounding area.
In an update to her Instagram Story, Katherine snapped a photo of the surgery site, which was covered with a bandage.
She wrote: ‘This is going so well by the way and should heal flat.’
In another post she showed her followers what it looked like before and added: ‘Here’s a photo of the melanoma (which really does not look like melanoma) in the office before they took it off.’
Katherine Ryan shared a health update on Friday after undergoing her second surgery following her skin cancer diagnosis
In an update to her Instagram Story, Katherine snapped a photo of the surgery site, which was covered with a bandage
Katherine had her second surgery on Monday and uploaded a photo of her arm, covered with a plaster.
She captioned the update: ‘Done,’ with a tick and a red heart emoji.
It’s the second time Katherine has been diagnosed with the disease, having been diagnosed with Stage 2 cancer in 2004.
Speaking on her podcast, Telling Everybody Everything last week, she explained: ‘The only reason that they agreed to remove it was because I went to a fancy private place in South Kensington and I paid them a grand.
‘I don’t know if on the NHS they ever would have removed this mole.’
While the Canadian comic did not trust the NHS would have removed the mole, she revealed she faced different problems while seeing private doctors.
She explained that she had paid £300 for a seven-minute consultation with a doctor, who wrongly informed her the mole wasn’t cancerous.
Yet she was inspired to keep pushing with her concerns after following Teddi Mellencamp’s journey.
In another post she showed her followers what it looked like before and added: ‘Here’s a photo of the melanoma (which really does not look like melanoma) in the office before they took it off’
It’s the second time Katherine has been diagnosed with the disease, having been diagnosed with Stage 2 cancer in 2004
The Real Housewives star, 43, has been battling skin cancer since 2022 and this year revealed doctors had found three tumours in her brain.
Katherine recalled: ‘He gave me the news that I wanted! I think it’s really easy to take a diagnosis of you’re healthy and walk away, you go ”great I’m healthy” and you don’t think about it again because that is the easiest news.
‘But the mole kept changing – I know a lot about melanoma, I had a melanoma as a very young woman, stage two on my leg – and I’ve spoken about that before.’
She continued: ‘Even that didn’t look traditionally like melanoma to me, fair enough it had some discolouration and asymmetry and a bit of black and red. It was a flat mole, not that bad and not that big, but it was stage two melanoma so that was bad.
‘I had to have full general anesthetic and surgery to have a golf-ball size of my leg because – if you know about melanoma, you know it’s a deadly form of skin cancer and it spreads quickly.’
Discussing her current cancer battle, she went on: ‘I just felt like this mole wasn’t right. It’s on my arm, I showed pictures of it on social media, this is like the hole from having it removed.
‘I went in and I wanted the doctor to remove a bigger piece of it and stitch it up in a straight line.
‘But even when he looked at it, he was like “not melanoma, totally fine, I will do the shave and send it away for histology and if there’s any borders that we missed, then we will do the deeper cut”.’
Yet the test confirmed that she needed the deeper cut, and she continued: ‘It just feels crazy to me, like what could have happened if I hadn’t been my own advocate – and I will continue to be my own advocate.
‘If I hadn’t pushed, if I had taken that good answer the first time and walked away. Then I would have had melanoma just growing and spreading in my arm and I would say “oh no the doctor says it’s fine, it’s fine” and god knows how far that would have gone.’
Katherine had her second surgery on Monday and uploaded a photo of her arm, covered with a plaster. She captioned the update: ‘Done,’ with a tick and a red heart emoji
Discussing her current cancer battle, she said ‘I just felt like this mole wasn’t right. It’s on my arm, I showed pictures of it on social media’
She explained that she had paid £300 for a seven-minute consultation with a doctor, who wrongly informed her the mole wasn’t cancerous (Katherine’s mole is pictured before her surgery)
She was inspired to keep pushing with her concerns after following Teddi Mellencamp ‘s journey (Teddi pictured)
reveals the simple ABCDE checklist that doctors use to spot melanomas
Katherine shared her shock at the diagnosis, revealing how she has been careful to protect her skin.
Explaining how she broke the news to husband Bobby Kootstra, she shared: ‘I was upset when I called [Bobby] because I feel very lucky but I also feel like what the f**k?
‘It’s not ideal to have melanoma twice in your life and I obviously have a genetic predisposition, I am someone with type one, Celtic skin, I have over 100 moles.
‘I don’t go in the sun, I wear SPF all the time, I cover my body, I cover my arms, I cover my face, but here’s my second go with melanoma that I know of! I’m thinking f**k what other moles do I need to get checked?’
She added in a TikTok video: ‘This time luckily I caught it early, I don’t think it has spread.’
It’s the second time Katherine has been diagnosed with the disease, having been diagnosed with Stage 2 cancer in 2004.
She said previously: ‘The cancer wasn’t that serious. It wasn’t into my lymph nodes, I didn’t have to have chemotherapy.
‘It did recur, but it was easily dealt with. I feel like I was really lucky just to get that lesson, that little smack on the a**e of “Hey, wait a minute. Listen to your body, here.”’