It should have been one of the happiest times in Julie Hunter’s life.
Her sister had just been given the all-clear from cancer and she was looking forward to being a mum.
But, as the 31-year-old showed off her 12-week baby scan pictures to relatives, she received a call from her doctor to tell her she had cancer.
It came just weeks after big sister Emma, 37, won her own battle with the disease, which included surgery to remove a tumour the size of a watermelon and weeks of intense chemotherapy.
Julie, from Aberdeen, had discovered a mole under her left breast, which turned out to be a malignant melanoma – the deadliest form of skin cancer.
The beauty therapist only decided to get the mole checked out after her sister’s diagnosis made her paranoid about her health. But neither believed they would both be struck down with a different type of cancer within months.
Against all odds, both sisters are now cancer-free and Julie is a proud mum to six-month-old Zayn.
The family’s ordeal began after Emma returned from holiday in 2015 when she was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of ovarian cancer.
She said: “I was at the doctors and something just came over me. I felt something wasn’t right and felt a lump down near my hip.”
The doctor initially thought it was a cyst, but an ultrasound later showed the growth was more sinister.
It turned out to be a rare and deadly germ-cell tumour, which affects fewer than one in every 200,000 people.
The tumour was so big it weighed more than 1kg and was tangled around her ovary and womb.
Speaking about her ordeal, Julie, who lives in Aberdeen with husband Simo Tagir, 36, said: “After my sister got cancer, I have always been a bit more paranoid about things. So when I found a mole under my left breast, I thought I’d better phone the doctor.
“He removed it and sent it away to be analysed. By this point, I was pregnant and when I hadn’t heard anything by eight weeks I thought everything must be fine. But then I got a call just after I had my 12 week scan to say I had malignant melanoma.”
She could not have tests to show if the disease had spread to her lymph nodes or any of her organs, as it would be have been too risky for her unborn baby .
But when she was 22 weeks pregnant, surgeons removed the remaining cancer cells from the mole site to try to eliminate the disease.
The young mum, who only occasionally used tanning sun-beds, which are linked to her type of melanoma, has now called for others to think twice before using them.
She said: “I hardly ever used them and, when I did, it was only for six minutes, and I was never tanned afterwards.
“But some people use them all the time. In Scotland, we hardly see the sun, so it’s really dangerous to use sun-beds.
“Now I only use spray-tan.”
Emma added: “The most important thing for us is we are all still alive. And that’s testament to how treatment is moving forward and how good the local NHS is.”
Their step-mum Siobhan Hunter has now organised a charity cycle on June 3 to thank the Maggie’s Centre in Aberdeen, which helped support the family through the sisters’ cancer battles.