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Glenda noticed blood on her son’s sheets. A year later he was dead from a ‘cracked heel’
Exclusive: At just 15, Patrick Thomson walks, talks and behaves so much like the dad he barely knew that it leaves his grandmother Glenda Thomson breathless.
Unlike his father, Patrick should live to see 30.
Aaron Thomson held his son Patrick on the day he was born. Two days later, Aaron was dead. Thomson family
Aaron Thomson died two days after Patrick was born, killed at age 27 by metastatic melanoma that started as nothing more than a cracked heel.
An estimated 17,443 melanoma cases were diagnosed last year and about 1455 Australians died, despite the 94 per cent five-year survival rate.
Now Australia is approaching its first summer since testing revealed that multiple popular SPF products failed to provide their labelled protection, sparking a major regulatory and consumer crisis.
Glenda fears weakened trust in the sunscreen industry could put more young Aussies at risk of the insidious disease that stole her son from her.
“There’s education out there, and the education is better than it used to be, but I still think that young blokes think they’re invincible,” Glenda told nine.com.au.
Have you got a story? Contact reporter Maddison Skipper: mskipper@nine.com.au
Raised in a sunburnt country
Aaron grew up playing footy on sun-drenched fields in Lameroo, South Australia, about two hours east of Adelaide.
After school, he joined the Navy, served in Iraq, then went to work for a mining company in Western Australia.
When he wasn’t working in the sun, he was holidaying in it, and it was during a family trip to West Beach, SA, that his mother first realised something was wrong.
“I noticed on the bed he was sleeping in that there was blood all over the sheets,” Glenda said.
Aaron blamed a cracked heel that had been giving him grief for a few months; every time he thought it had healed, it cracked back open again.
Assuming his heavy work boots were to blame, he had brushed it off as harmless. Glenda urged him to get it checked out anyway.
Glenda Thomson knew there was something wrong when she found blood on Aaron’s sheets. Thomson family
“He eventually went to a doctor and they diagnosed him with a plantar wart. It looked like a plantar wart,” she said.
When it still wouldn’t heal, Aaron got a second opinion.
“Five different GPs diagnosed it as a plantar wart, and Aaron, being young and naive, never once asked for a biopsy,” Glenda said.
“By the time it was biopsied, it was just way, way too late.”
Misdiagnosis to metastatic melanoma
Aaron’s heel continued to bleed and as the months went on, he started experiencing bouts of fatigue as well.
He and his then-fiancée didn’t know what to make of his mystery symptoms. Then Glenda spotted the lump behind his knee.
Aaron Thomson was a healthy, active young man before he was diagnosed with melanoma and given months to live. Thomson family
Again, she begged her son to get it checked; again, doctors insisted it was nothing to worry about.
They told Aaron the lump was a benign Baker’s cyst, a fluid-filled growth behind the knee that can cause pain and stiffness, that could be surgically removed.
His wedding was just a few months away, so Aaron put off the surgery until the week after his nuptials.
When surgeons finally opened him up in December 2010, almost a year after Glenda first noticed blood on the sheets, they were horrified.
“He was riddled with cancer,” Glenda said.
Testing revealed the melanoma had started on Aaron’s heel and spread through his body, but that might have been prevented if it had been caught early.
Melanoma is the third most common cancer in Australia, and the most common cancer in young Aussies aged 20 to 39.
One in every 17 Aussies are diagnosed with melanoma in their lifetime, and one Aussie dies from melanoma every six hours.
Despite the damning statistics, about 90 per cent of melanoma cases can be treated if detected early – but many cases, like Aaron’s, go undetected for far too long.
“They gave him less than nine months to live,” Glenda said.
“Initially, he didn’t tell me how bad the prognosis was, but I could see from how he was walking that it was in his hips, I knew it was in his bones.
“I knew that he probably didn’t have much time.”
Aaron’s wife Rhiannon discovered she was expecting their first child shortly after he was diagnosed, so Aaron threw himself into chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, and a clinical trial in a bid to survive long enough to become a father.
“He never stopped, he never gave up the will to live. He used to always say, ‘I’m gonna see Father’s Day,’” Glenda said.
Aaron’s son, Patrick was born on September 2, 2011. Two days later, on his first and only Father’s Day as a dad, Aaron died.
Keeping Aaron’s legacy alive
Before Aaron passed, he made his mum promise that she would keep his memory alive and work to save other young men from the same fate.
He had created a short film about melanoma, his diagnosis, and the importance of early detection which he wanted her to use as a tool for education.
“In the end, that was my last promise to him,” Glenda said.
“He made me promise that I would do it, and I upheld that promise. He was going to never let this happen to another family.”
It’s been nearly 15 years since Aaron died, and Glenda’s still keeping that promise.
Glenda doesn’t want another family to experience what she, Rhiannon and Patrick did when they lost Aaron. Thomson family
She’s urging Aussies to support the Australian Melanoma Research Foundation’s (AMRF) life-saving research by donating, fundraising and getting involved.
When Aaron died in 2011, fewer than 10 per cent of Aussies diagnosed with melanoma survived; that figure was up to more than 55 per cent by 2024.
But Glenda isn’t satisfied with 55 per cent.
She dreams of a future when melanoma won’t steal another father from his son, a husband from his wife, or a child from his mother – but that future can only be achieved through research, education and awareness.
She’s supporting the AMRF’s Sun-Safe Spring starts on September 1 and aims to encourage Aussies to practice sun-safety and watch for the signs of melanoma, no matter their age.
“If you find a lump, don’t just take one opinion. If you’re not happy with the answer, or you haven’t found an answer, then don’t sit back,” she said.
And she’ll keep saying it as long as she lives; to keep her promise to Aaron, and to keep his legacy alive.
“Anyone that’s lost a child likes to keep their memory alive. The day they stop talking about them is a day that they’re forgotten.”
