How Aussie all-rounder Ashley Noffke learnt he has cancer

Forced break for injured Noffke enabled detection of skin cancer

How Aussie all-rounder Ashley Noffke learnt he has cancer

Forced break for injured Noffke enabled detection of skin cancer

Australian all-rounder Ashley Noffke has admitted his enforced spell on the sidelines this winter was a blessing in disguise in identifying that he was suffering from skin cancer.

Ashley Noffke. pic courtesy/ WCCC

Noffke, who is playing for Worcestershire in English County cricket this summer, took advantage of being out of action with a hip problem to have an innocuous looking mole removed from his leg.

But that mole turned out to be a grade three melanoma and led to the 32-year-old Noffke being booked in for immediate surgery prior to Christmas.

Greater cause
Noffke revealed he would have been "less likely of being cured" had he reported for duty at New Road this summer without the mole having been removed.

He told PA Sport: "To get hit by the hip injury was very frustrating but in hindsight maybe it was all for a greater cause.

"If I hadn't have had the hip injury and spent so much time off the field, I wouldn't have had the mole removed off my leg and I wouldn't have known it was a melanoma.

"The doctor said to me if I had come over here to Worcestershire without having it cut out, there was a fair chance of being less likely to be cured so I was very lucky I had spent some time off the field."

Noffke added: "I got checked by the specialist just before I came over here and obviously that is an ongoing process, every three or four months.

"As soon as I get back to Australia, I will be going to see him again.

Extra careful
"It is a matter of keeping an eye on everything. I am a pretty freckly sort of character so I've got to be extra careful about being in the sun and also if there are changes in the body and marks on the skin.

"Hopefully it is past me now but the hip injury in its way has probably gone a long way to, not so much saving my life, but saving a long painful road of trying to cure.

"If I had come over here without having it cut out, the chances of being cured would have dropped dramatically."

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