A woman who was urged by her coworker to get a mole she'd had for a decade looked at a second time was shocked to discover it was cancer.
Maria Sylvia, who now goes by
@frankenthumbttv on TikTok, had a tan streak under her nail that appeared during high school. Initially, Maria thought it was an injury from being involved in sports. It was at a podiatrist appointment that the doctor spotted her nail and advised her to get it checked out by a dermatologist. She did and was given the all clear, told it was a mole and nothing to worry about.
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In fall 2021, Maria's coworker reached out to her after reading an article about subungual melanoma that featured a photo similar to what the spot under Maria's nail looked like. She urged her to get it checked out again, so Maria did just that. It was then she discovered she was living with cancer.
Maria hadn't paid much mind to the streak under her nail over the decade in between getting it first checked out and getting a second look. She'd gotten used to the look of it and figured it was just a mole, like she was told.
Maria explained the line went from being faint to being totally visible over a year's time. She continued thinking it was a mole until she went to a doctor and requested a biopsy at her coworker's urging.
After the biopsy, which the doctor was even reluctant to perform because of the unlikeliness it would be cancer, it was discovered to be subungual melanoma. This is a rare but potentially serious type of skin cancer that typically shows up in the skin under the nails of the toes or fingers. Thankfully, it was stage 0 with no signs of spread, because at stage 1 spread happens aggressively.
Maria was referred to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, where surgeons removed the entire nail bed and top of her thumb down to the bone and tendon on March 11, 2022. They told her if there were signs of spread they might have to amputate, but that was not the case for Maria.
On March 25, Maria received a skin graft. Once healed, her thumb will be smooth and she will never grow a nail on it again. She also has to continuously follow up with her medical team over the next three years, as she's been determined to be at high risk for skin cancer.
Maria has shared that since going viral, she does feel concern for causing panic in people when her situation is a pretty rare one.
"Overall, the reaction I received was positive and encouraging but I believe it also raised anxiety in some. Before this diagnosis, I was unaware that pigmentation streaks on fingernails of people of color was a common hereditary characteristic. With that in mind, tens of thousands of comments are from people who have streaks on their fingernails and are worried they might have melanoma," she told Newsweek.
"I caused quite a bit of panic unintentionally. My mentions were flooded with people flashing their toes and fingers with streaks on them, asking me if they have melanoma too. While I tried to calm them down, I obviously told them to see a dermatologist because I'm not a doctor, and it's better to be safe than sorry."
Still, after hearing from people who had the cancer spread and had to have amputations and other painful medical procedures, she's happy to raise awareness.
"The best thing from this video going viral is that hopefully others will do the same if they observe a nail streak on someone they encounter."
