DYLAN McDonald didn't know why his mum used to be so upset, why he had to miss the school athletics day and why he could only play footy when his parents allowed him.

He didn't know how a scratchy, itchy spot on his cheek near his ear could become so much more than that. He didn't understand why he had doctors with different accents assessing him whenever he had an appointment, and had no idea how close he was to dying.

He didn't know how sheltered he really was from everything until he was 16, when one night after dinner he asked his mum Fiona why everyone in their house needed to use so much sunscreen all the time.

"That's when I had it explained what actually happened to me," says McDonald, a NAB AFL Academy player hoping to be drafted at the end of this year. 

"I knew things weren't good when it was happening, but I didn't think it was that bad."

McDonald was 11 and in grade five when Fiona saw blood coming from her son's cheek after he had picked away at an irritating mole. They went to the local doctors in Eurora, a small country town an hour-and-a-half north east of Melbourne, where the GP was keen to freeze off the spot. But the afternoon they visited, the machine to do that was broken.

McDonald had a biopsy taken, and at first he was cleared of anything dangerous. But a doctor who happened to be researching skin cancer at Melbourne's Alfred Hospital looked over the scans and saw something he didn't like. McDonald was the second youngest person in Australia to be diagnosed with spitzoid malignant melanoma, a rare skin cancer.

"I was protected from it all a little bit. It wasn't until I had that conversation with mum a few years later that I found out I was only a couple of months from dying if it hadn't been detected," McDonald told AFL.com.au.

"At the time, my biggest concern was that I was going to miss playing footy. I was playing with Eurora, we hadn't lost a game, and we were looking good to play in a Grand Final. I was most worried about footy, probably unrightfully so."

Within a week of being diagnosed, McDonald had his first bout of surgery at a clinic in Benalla. 

"It was rated a fifth-grade melanoma, which is the most aggressive they have, and they had doctors flying from all over world to see me," the 18-year-old recalls.

It took another two operations over nearly two years by a plastic surgeon in Melbourne to remove the cancerous cells (the last surgery was postponed a week so McDonald could play in Eurora's premiership decider). 

McDonald never had to undergo chemotherapy, but it always remained an option if things reached that stage. All of this made little sense to McDonald, who then – as now – was a sport-obsessed, outdoors-type kid. During one consultation at the Alfred, he remembers asking a doctor if he was going to die. The doctor didn't say yes, but didn't really say no, either. 

"Mum started crying after that, and I didn't really understand why. But I think they were almost trying to prepare for everything," he said.

"Obviously I knew about the common skin cancer you get from the sun, but from the research they've done on it so far they've said this one is not caused by the sun. 

"They know that specifically. They don't know what it's caused by yet, it might just be an abnormality that develops. It's limited what they know because it is so rare." 

For five years after the surgeries, every three months McDonald had check-ups on his skin. His family shifted from Eurora to Albury in part to be closer to a highly credentialed dermatologist there, and they live only a couple of kilometres from the centre.

A determined Dylan McDonald is ready to make a push into the AFL next year. Picture: AFL Media

The regular check-ups were stressful, and never got easier. They ended last year when he was given the five-year all clear, and he has had no problems since the final surgery long ago. But naturally the worry still remains at times.

"Those days were probably where I was the most nervous," he said. "You sit in the waiting room and there's all these other people in there who have problems as well and you can't do much about it. You're in the hands of the unknown. 

"At times you think about it as well when you're at home, and in our house I think we go through litres and litres of sunscreen every summer. We're right on top of it to minimise any risk."

Apart from the scar near his left ear, McDonald will take something else with him from the experience. This year, as the hard-running midfielder strives to end the season at an AFL club, he knows it won't be easy.   

Already, the tests have come. In January he was a part of the academy's high-performance camp in Florida, where he won the three-kilometre time trial after leading the whole way.

Last Sunday, he played for the academy against Werribee's VFL team and on Saturday morning he'll again line-up against players who are older and stronger than him when the academy faces with Northern Blues at the MCG.

At the mid-year under-18 championships, he'll play for New South Wales and wants to become more of an inside midfielder rather than waiting on the wing to be fed the ball out.

And as a member of Greater Western Sydney's zone academy, the Murray Bushrangers product knows the Giants and other clubs will watch and determine where he sits in the draft pool. It's not something that daunts him.

"What I took away from [the illness] was that things do get better, eventually," McDonald said. "For me the biggest thing was missing sport, but I came out better for it. Because I missed so much of what I wanted to do, I really cherished it in the end.

"I love being challenged now. When you set a goal, it sets in your mind that it's what you really want to do. You can't leave it half-done."