What to Know
It’s been more than a decade since Witney Carson was promoted to pro on Dancing With the Stars, but that first year on the job definitely wasn’t easy for her. As she competed with her celebrity partner, singer Cody Simpson, Witney was secretly battling cancer, and no one working on the show knew. Somehow, she managed to keep her diagnosis to herself, all the while dealing with treatment after finding out that she had melanoma.
Witney has a family history of skin cancer.
Speaking to Parade in a new interview this week, Witney said that since both of her parenst had faced melanoma diagnoses in the past, she and her siblings had been routinely screened themselves. During a doctor’s appointment, they had discovered a cancerous mole on her foot.
“And the doctor was like, ‘If you don’t take care of this, you’re going to have to go through chemo,'” Witney said. “And I was like, ‘Hold on. My dream is about to happen. I’m about to be on Dancing With the Stars. I don’t have time for this!’”
Unfortunately, she had to make time — and instead of choosing treatment over her DWTS dreams, she decided to do both.
She didn’t tell anyone at work she had surgery.
Not only did she have to have lymph nodes removed from her hip, but the mole on her foot had to be removed, too. You don’t have to be a professional dancer to guess that she was probably doing the opposite of staying off her feet as her foot recovered from the surgery, which led to a long and painful healing process for Witney, who said she was hiding the scar on her foot with “wraps.”
“I remember I had not gotten cleared to dance yet, but of course I was going to move. So I did anyway. And I looked down at my foot. And I just had a big pile of blood. My tennis shoe was completely soaked in blood,” she said. “Every time after the live show, I had to go to the doctor and get it wrapped and fixed. And no one knew.”
And then she just got back out there and kept dancing for five weeks straight with Cody? She’s a superhero.
Witney still has a scar on her foot.
As a result of the surgery, Witney still has a scar on her foot that reminds her of everything she’s been through. And though she kept quiet about her cancer diagnosis during DWTS, she’s been more open about it in the years since.
“I thought it was ugly and disgusting,” she once told the Skin Cancer Foundation about her scar. “It reminded me of the most terrible time of my life.”
Now, though, she has more positive feelings about it.
“What I went through helped me become a better dancer and a better person,” she said. “I’m proud of this scar now. It was a catalyst for everything that came afterwards.”
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