Jonathan Muggleton was diagnosed with a rare cancer after his birthmark changed (Image: Jonathan Muggleton ) In the past four years, dad-of-two Jonathan Muggleton has endured pioneering surgeries and brutal side effects from immunotherapy in a bid to slow the growth of mucosal melanoma, an aggressive cancer. With trail-blazing robotic surgery and plans for treatment abroad, it’s been a journey of dramatic highs and lows that began with a birthmark. “It was about the size of a small fingernail,” says 48-year-old Jonathan.
“It was on my groin and had been there forever. At the beginning of 2020, the texture and colour changed a bit, so in February I saw a GP.” Jonathan was prescribed cream and asked to come back if the birthmark didn’t improve.
“Which it did,” he remembers. “Then, after a couple of months, it started to get angry again.” By now, the UK was under lockdown.
Jonathan and wife Rebecca were busy juggling homeschooling their two children, Amelia, now 11, and Charlie, now nine, with work. “Back then, nobody was seeing the GP. But by August, I thought, ‘this is definitely not right’, and in September, I managed to get an appointment.
Straight away, the GP said, ‘I’m going to refer you to the urology team.’” Within weeks, which felt “like an eternity”, Jonathan was seen by a consultant and had a biopsy at University College Hospital in London. In late September, he received the devastating diagnosis of stage 2 mucosal melanoma, a ra.
