Nerve Damage From Treatment Left Her in a Wheelchair
- In November 2019, the model Slick Woods revealed she was being treated for stage III melanoma.
- Chemotherapy treatment led to nerve damage that left Woods temporarily unable to walk.
- Woods, just 24-years-old, says she has since stopped treatment because of how terrible it made her feel, and is focused on her son and charity work.
A 2019 Instagram video showed Woods in her chair. The caption read, “Legs numb left hand still numb I hate this bullshit.”
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Related: Model Slick Woods' Beautiful Smile While in Wheelchair as She Shares the Side Effects of Her Cancer TreatmentShe went through one round of chemo, which she called “gruesome.” “It’s just not something I wish on anyone. I just got sicker, and I got weaker,” she said to CNN.
From the Streets to the Runway
Woods (born Simone Thomson) is no stranger to adversity. Five years ago, she was a homeless teen fighting to survive on the streets of Los Angeles. A chance meeting with English model Ash Stymest at a city bus stop led her to a modeling contract, and a spot in the lookbook for Kanye West’s Yeezy line.
It wasn’t long before she’d become one of the fashion industry’s most sought-after models. “I went from no food at all to $1,000 dinners,” she said. “It just happened so fast.”
Woods was the face of Rihanna’s Fenty Puma and Fenty Beauty campaigns. She’s also modeled for fashion design icons like Fendi and Marc Jacobs. In 2018, a very pregnant Woods walked the runway in lingerie at Rihanna’s New York Fashion Week show, later revealing that she’d been in active labor at the time.
#At Least I’m Already Bald
In November 2019, after rumors about her cancer began to circulate online, Woods confirmed that she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for stage III melanoma. She wrote, “Shout out to everybody that gotta go through it. #atleastimalreadybald.”
Treatment for Woods' stage of melanoma, which has spread to the lymph nodes, usually starts with surgery to remove the original tumor. From there, doctors give immunotherapy or targeted therapy to reduce the odds that the cancer will come back.
Melanoma Treatment Has "Come a Long Way"
“Patients with stage III disease probably have a 50/50 chance of being ‘ok’ with just a surgical resection,” Dr. Anna Pavlick, medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, told SurvivorNet in an earlier interview. “However, we now have brand new medicines, or immunotherapy medicines, that can significantly reduce their risk of it ever coming back.”
It’s not clear what other treatments Woods had, or why she received chemotherapy. For melanoma that is in an arm or leg, sometimes doctors infuse just that limb with chemotherapy drugs.
As a result of her treatment, Woods says she lost movement in both legs and one arm, and she had to temporarily rely on a wheelchair to get around.
Without treatment, melanoma can eventually be fatal. Once the cancer has reached the lymph nodes, as it has by stage III, it can travel to other organs. How long that takes can vary from person to person.
Woods told CNN that she wants to focus her remaining time on her son, Saphir, and on the charity work she’s doing, distributing resources to the homeless in L.A.’s notorious ‘Skid Row’ community.
“I just want to get to the point where I can dedicate my life completely to this project that me and [business partner] Tai [Savet] started,” she said.
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