I thought melanoma was just a mole but now I have tumours on my heart and I won’t see my daughter grow up. This is the one ‘slight’ symptom that I shouldn’t have ignored…

Victoria Hudson Craig was only 33 when she noticed a strange birthmark on her shoulder, but several doctors thought nothing of it.

The birthmark changed shape a few times – and in May 2013, alarm bells started ringing when it started bleeding down Victoria’s back.

11 years later, and Victoria now has five tumors on her heart.

Tragically, doctors have told Victoria that her rare form of melanoma is incurable.

The young mother told FEMAIL she was ‘terrified’ her six-year-old daughter would grow up without her and never imagined a small birthmark and irregular heart palpitations were the only symptoms of what was to come.

“I was on holiday with my sister and she noticed the birthmark was bleeding,” Victoria said.

‘I went back to another doctor who told me I needed to have it removed immediately – which was the opposite of all the medical advice I had previously received.’

The following month, the birthmark was removed and she was formally diagnosed with stage 2b melanoma.

‘I was shocked at first; I hadn’t really heard much about it growing up in Britain. To me it wasn’t a common cancer,” Victoria said.

Doctors made further excisions in Victoria’s back and left shoulder to check if the disease had spread to surrounding tissue, but nothing was found at the time.

‘They told me it could still be in my bloodstream and undetectable. But there was nothing else to do at the moment,” Victoria said.

In 2015, Victoria moved to New Zealand and eventually gave birth to her daughter Ruby in 2017.

“The original melanoma from 2013 sent me to a dark place,” she said.

‘I moved to New Zealand to get away from life and re-evaluate what was important to me.

“I met my husband six months later and ended up staying here, and I’ve been trying to live more in the moment. I am very aware that time is short.’

Victoria felt a sharp pain in her abdomen in October 2020 and was rushed to hospital with appendicitis.

‘While the hospital was preparing me to have my appendix removed, they did a scan to check if it was indeed my appendix that was causing the pain.

‘The radiologist’s hand slipped and accidentally scanned the base of my heart – where two tumors were visible.’

Victoria remembered the doctor’s wide eyes.

Several tests later, the mother was found to have four tumors in her heart: three around the base of the muscle and one in the center.

‘They thought the melanoma was back, but it didn’t look much like melanoma. The doctors said it looked unusual and they couldn’t really identify it.”

After the inconclusive findings, doctors sent Victoria’s test results to colleagues abroad in the hope that someone could diagnose her.

The Papworth Hospital in Britain conducted an analysis that found the tumors were more likely to be the result of melanoma than anything else.

‘I was then treated for stage 4 melanoma and started immunotherapy for nine months, but that proved ineffective.’

Victoria was stunned by the diagnosis, especially as she had no other obvious symptoms.

The mother recalled mild palpitations, but she was also experiencing early menopause at the time and believed this was due to her hormonal changes.

‘The cancer progressed and the doctors also found a fifth tumor in my heart in December 2021. The week before Christmas the doctors told me that all five tumors had grown and the largest was 6cm.’

Victoria had to look for alternative treatments when she realized that immunotherapy had no hope of success.

She started taking BRAF inhibitors and paid for it out of pocket because the drug was not government funded.

Four months later, a miracle happened: Victoria’s tumors had shrunk by 30 percent, with the following months showing a similar pattern of shrinkage.

However, the medication has affected Victoria’s quality of life and caused serious health problems, even requiring a stomach infection to be investigated by her doctor.

“There’s always a chance that it’s not just something I ate, but that the cancer and other symptoms are being masked by the pills,” she said.

She also regularly suffered from high fever and fatigue, which meant she could not even get out of bed for days.

One thing that helps Victoria get through each day is trying to see life through her daughter’s eyes.

‘She knows there is something wrong with my heart and that I am taking medication for it. But she doesn’t understand that it is cancer and what that means. She doesn’t know that it is incurable.

“We try to tell her what we think she can handle without creating too much fear.”

Victoria’s main goal is to spend as much time as possible with her family while she still can, and create positive memories and experiences for her young daughter.

“The future is so uncertain, and one of the things that breaks my heart the most is knowing that she will grow up without me.

“I hope we have a long time together, but it scares me that it will end before I’m ready.”

Victoria said her husband Ryan has been her rock throughout her health journey thanks to his calm and kind demeanor.

“It’s scary for him too, knowing that at some point he’ll be a single father. Sometimes I don’t know how he copes, but he is so strong and caring.’

Victoria’s medicine currently only keeps the tumors stable.

Doctors suspect that if Victoria’s tumors continue to grow, they will cause heart failure.

‘I have a scan every three months to make sure they are stable and I need to keep taking the medication for as long as possible. I’m not sure what we’ll do if it stops working.

‘There is currently no mainstream treatment, so we may have to look abroad for more experimental treatments.’

You can donate to the fund to help pay for Victoria’s medications here.