When Bridget Patterson flew to Bali to celebrate her 30th birthday with close friends and family, she didn’t imagine the trip would turn into a reminder of how fickle life can be.
Amid the festivities, the South Australia and Adelaide Strikers player received an email from her dermatologist informing her that an earlier biopsy had turned out malignant.
Patterson’s thoughts immediately ran wild.
Does this mean my career is done? Am I going to die?
The 2025-26 season has been marked with on-field milestones for the wicketkeeper-batter. When the Strikers celebrated Patterson’s 150th appearance for the club during WBBL|11, the wider cricket community was unaware of the off-field battle she was fighting.
It was through an Instagram post in January that Patterson revealed her stage III melanoma diagnosis and how significantly it has altered her life. Now, having become South Australia’s most-capped WNCL player, she has opened up about the mental toll of the diagnosis and coming to terms with her new life.
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“It’s been a journey, that’s for sure,” Patterson tells cricket.com.au as she puts her mind back to the summer of 2023-24.
It was in middle of the WBBL season that the presence of a mole on her left leg had started to bother her. So much so that she requested an impromptu check-up from the match doctor when the Strikers were playing in Mackay.
“It was just that one day where I was like, ‘Nah, just not comfortable about this right now. I’m going to get the doctor on the field to just check it out’,” she says.
“So he did, and he probably was giving me the reassurance that I needed before going out to play a game in the WBBL. He said, ‘It all looks good to me. If you’re concerned, let’s go get yourself checked when you get home’.”
She received similar advice from the team doctor at the end of the season. The South Australian players had their annual skin checks scheduled a fortnight later and the dermatologist there was more forthright.
“As soon as he took a look at it (the mole), he said, ‘No, we need to get that one off’, like, to get a biopsy,” Patterson recalls.
“I went down to his clinic and got it removed and kind of thought nothing of it, to be honest.
“I just thought: I’ll probably never hear from him again.”
But she would hear from him. And doctors, clinics, hospitals and medical investigations would become part of her routine.
In April 2024, Patterson was turning 30. A celebration in Bali had been planned, and having a good time was the only thing on her mind. But when that fateful email dropped two days before her 30th, she was suddenly staring at a future full of questions and uncertainties – even if the full gravity of her situation had not yet landed for her.
She remembers turning up to her first surgeon appointment, alone.
“The first question the surgeon asked me was: ‘Do you have any family?'” she says. “And I was like, ‘Well, yeah, I’ve got family’.”
“She said, ‘Oh, did you not think to bring them?’ and I said, ‘No, I’m just coming to see you, like, to understand what’s going to happen next.’
“I was massively in denial and wasn’t really sure what I was up for.”
Patterson now can’t help but wonder whether there were signs she had missed.
“I don’t know why I didn’t pick up earlier that (the diagnosis) was probably larger than what it was, because just looking back at that (time), I had no energy and just everything felt really hard,” she says. “So was that the actual melanoma and the cancer taking it out of me?”
The surgeon’s explanations all sounded like medical jargon. The millimetres of skin that would be removed, the tests to determine the extent of the spread, and so forth.
Her procedure involved a skin graft and lymph node removal. Scans to check the spread of the cancer cells came back clear. Patterson was upbeat that life would soon be back to normal.
But the recovery posed a new type of challenge. She had to keep her leg raised and was unable to bend her foot. For two weeks, she wasn’t allowed to walk. She couldn’t even stand. A toilet trip wasn’t possible without assistance. It was uncharted territory for a professional athlete used to regular exercise and fitness regimens.
Then, in a following check-up, her surgeon had more bad news: Stage III – the cancer had spread to nearby lymph nodes.
“That’s when it kind of hit home,” Patterson recalls. “That was a big kick in the guts to hear that.
“People hear ‘Stage III’ and immediately think of Stage IV, thinking that ‘you’re done’ kind of thing – like you are actually on your way out.”
Patterson, however, describes hers as a “positive diagnosis”, pointing to recurrence rates for Stage III melanoma. The advice from her oncologist was for surveillance over treatment.
That has meant numerous PET scans, blood tests and rigorous mole mapping every three months for the past two years.
Amid the upheaval of her life, also came the anxiety of waiting for the results of every scan or test. It took away Patterson’s trust in her body, leading to a persistent sense of vulnerability.
The things she enjoyed the most – outdoor pursuits like cycling, running, even mowing the lawn – were no longer an escape from the pressures of daily life, but a reminder of her life’s biggest challenge.
A professional cricketer cannot escape being in the field and under the sun for long hours, and that is where the most brutal manifestation of her battle unfolded.
“I probably didn’t realise how much I was struggling mentally until the last round of the WNCL last year,” she reveals.
“We were playing WA in WA, I was wicketkeeping and the only thing on my mind was: Am I covered enough? Is this sun hurting me?
“Those thoughts created panic within myself.
“Then, next thing I’m starting to think: Am I having a heart attack? Because I’ve got these pains in my chest.
“But it was just because I’d never experienced panic before.”
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Patterson knows full well a youth spent training to be the best cricketer she could be played its role in increasing her sun exposure over the years. It would be natural, then, to expect her relationship with the sport to be called into question.
But Patterson instead feels a sense of gratitude, insisting she wouldn’t have detected her melanoma had it not been for the regular skin checks that are made available to her as a professional cricketer.
She admits she slacked with sun protection early in her career, and while working as a curator for the SACA when she first moved to Adelaide, and she expresses a sense of regret for not giving an ear to advice when younger.
Alongside the fitness and physical examinations she receives from the SACA, Patterson was also supported by psychology sessions provided by the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA).
She has now come to adjust to her ‘new normal’, and while the frequency of the tests and check-ups will go down with time, she has again found the joy in her outdoors lifestyle.
And she is embracing being able to now share her journey and raise awareness for melanoma prevention and detection, particularly among young people.
“I think (we can) still enjoy Australia – enjoy being outside in our elements, but just do it in a smart way and protect yourself when you can,” she says.
“Just be sun smart because the tan and looking good, there’s other ways of doing that.
“You can get fake tan and stuff like that these days, if you really have to, but the outcomes from getting a natural tan are just not worth it.”
Last year, Patterson, along with her friend and Kensington District Cricket Club teammate Sarah Lowe, entered a team in ‘Melanoma March’ to raise awareness and funds for the Melanoma Institute of Australia. The ‘Potato’s Pals’ – inspired by Patterson’s club cricket nickname of Potato – stuck around for a non-profit organisation she later started.
The organisation has already taken its first small steps, handing out stickers to encourage conversations. Several players had them on their bats in the last WBBL season.
Next is work with the Cancer Council to support other melanoma patients. But Patterson’s ultimate goal is to make high-detail skin scans – which are not currently subsidised by Medicare – accessible for all.
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The South Australia team has witnessed its share of medical challenges in recent times.
Captain Jemma Barsby recently opened up about her 10-year battle with multiple sclerosis. When Patterson was learning of her melanoma on her birthday trip to Bali in 2024, teammate Josie Dooley was on her way to a surfing holiday in Hawaii where she suffered a stroke that has led to an ongoing rehabilitation.
It has brought the teammates closer through a shared perspective, and allowed them to lean on each other for emotional support.
“Ours are obviously very different circumstances,” Patterson says, “but mine and Dools’ (Dooley’s) things happened at very similar times.”
“We’ve had numerous conversations since these events have happened, and it’s weird, we feel like we’ve gained a closer connection.
“I was good friends with those two beforehand, but this has definitely made us closer and more vulnerable to one another to talk about how we’re feeling and things that have been going on for us.”
The South Australia group is tight knit. The stable senior core has been bolstered by newcomers out of the local Premier cricket setup. Strong connections built over years have helped them navigate these struggles.
Patterson has a strong sense of pride in being part of this team, one she first walked into as a teenager 13 years ago and has now turned out for 115 times – more than anyone else, having surpassed the appearances record of Australia great Karen Rolton earlier this month.
SA handed a previously unbeaten NSW side their first defeat in that match. For Patterson, the celebration of her appearances milestone was also a celebration of her triumph over doubts about her future in the sport and the mental demons that made every moment in the middle a battle.
“It’s not something that you really set out or think that you will achieve,” the 31-year-old says of her games record. “Being a one-state player is something that I’m very proud of, because you do see a lot of younger players chasing opportunities these days and doing what they have to do to try and make something of their career.
“I’m one of those fortunate people that has been able to stay in South Australia, and South Australia has supported me massively along the way.
“Hopefully, I can continue to contribute to SA cricket for a while to come. And another title or two along the way would be nice as well.”
