Woman Says She Felt ‘Pretty Good’ After Surgery to Remove Cancerous Mole on Her Face — Until She Felt the Band-Aid (Exclusive)

YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Daniela Mullins went in for a full body scan while she and her dermatologist were looking at her postpartum skin.

• When her dermatologist saw the mole on her face, they decided to take a closer look

• Mullins was later diagnosed with Stage 0 skin cancer, also known as carcinoma in situ

Daniela Mullins was having skin problems after giving birth to her daughter and decided to go see a new dermatologist for a regular check-in.

When she went for a full-body scan in April 2025, her dermatologist took note of the mole on her face, which Mullins tells PEOPLE she first noticed around June 2015.

To the eye, Mullins, 34, says the bump looked “normal,” but her doctor felt differently.

“I didn’t notice any of my moles changing. It wasn’t until this whole diagnosis, everything happened, that I went back and looked at pictures and realized how much it had changed,” the Virginia resident shares with PEOPLE.

Because Mullins was recently postpartum, her dermatologist decided to wait six months before doing a biopsy.

On October 24, 2025, Mullins finally went in for the medical procedure, and a week later, she learned she had melanoma. She was diagnosed with Stage 0 skin cancer, or carcinoma in situ, meaning the cancer was on her skin and had not yet spread.

Just before Thanksgiving, she had surgery to remove the mole and the surrounding area.

“If it wasn’t for that skin check I had scheduled, I don’t know when I would have realized I had melanoma on my face,” she shares, noting that she had seen several dermatologists in the past and no one had ever raised concerns about the mole.

After the surgery, Mullins shares that she was feeling “pretty good” — until she took off the bandages.

“Two days after I removed the bandage from the procedure, that’s when it hit me,” she says. “Before then, it was only a diagnosis on paper, and even during the procedure, I was not worried, afraid or anything.”

“Once I saw the impact on my face, it hit me, and not because of the aesthetics. It just became a reality. It was a tangible thing,” shares Mullins.

While the mole was just a small dot on her face, the incision stretches almost her entire cheek, as doctors often remove the area around the lesion in hopes of eliminating as much potential cancer as possible.

Her scar will take a full year to heal, but in the meantime, her doctor recommended “time, patience, and vaseline.”

“He said, ‘Give him time.’ Let your body do what it needs to do,” she shares.

However, Mullins emphasizes that she is less concerned about the scars and more focused on her health.

“My main concern was just to get this cancer out of me and move on,” she tells PEOPLE. “It’s important to note that some people care about this, and that’s fine; that’s valid, too. I don’t want my experience and ‘ugly scars’ to scare people away from getting skin checks.”

Going forward, she will get full-body scans every four months, something she will likely have to stay on top of for the rest of her life.

“Because this one popped up, I have a better chance of developing another one now. Thankfully, because it was caught at Stage 0, I don’t need further treatment. So it’s not like I need chemo,” she says. “Now it’s taking care of my scar right now, making sure it stays hydrated and making sure the rest of my body…trying to notice any changes I might have in the moles and being more aware of my skin.”

Mullins “randomly” decided to share her health journey on TikTok, which “took off and resonated with people.” She has since become an advocate for regular skin checks.

“I kept sharing my journey, especially after I learned that I can get skin cancer. I’m Latina, and my parents are both from Peru. I didn’t think that this would ever be a cancer that I could get,” she admits. “I wasn’t taught that that was something I could achieve. I thought it was really eye-opening and important for other people to know that.”

Although some users were shocked by the size of Mullins’ scar, others reminded her that “a scar is a lifeline” and that they would “rather have a scar than cancer.”

As for anyone who might find themselves in a similar position, Mullins says to “take it one step at a time.”

“Go with what your doctor is saying, because it’s easy to Google, [go] on TikTok, and spiral, but just go with your doctor’s advice and take it one step at a time,” she tells PEOPLE. “It’s a lot to process, and it’s not something to be ashamed of or afraid of on its own.”

“If you have a support system, really, really lean on it, because I don’t think I would have been able to muster the strength without it,” adds Mullins.

Her diagnosis prompted her to focus on her health in 2026 and beyond.

“Since this diagnosis, now I’m like, okay, I need to get my other things checked that I’ve been neglecting, because when you’re a mother, you just put yourself last. It’s easy to fall back on things, but I’ve scheduled everything I need to schedule, and I’m checking everything, a little at a time,” she says.

“I’m trying to be more preventive than having to face the consequences of putting things.”

Read the original article on People