'I met up with an old friend who had a big scar on his forearm, and he had a melanoma scare, that's what prompted me to get a skin check and it was lifesaving,' the Aussie champion told the Daily Mail.
'It was a big shock for me, I'd always had moles on my skin and we were always told to look out for changes or new spots but it developed in a mole I'd had on me my whole life.
'Like many Aussies I had constantly put off having my skin checked. I went in there expecting everything to be fine but the dermatologist didn't like the look of the mole so she removed it.'
The results of the initial check revealed that Cate would require more surgery to reove the remaining cells.
'The scary thing is that on the surface it didn't look like anything had changed, it had always been a slightly irregular mole, so it did require someone to look at it with a microscope,' Cate said.
'When you get the call telling you have a melanoma it's not the most reassuring conversation but the doctors were incredibly good at communicating that it wasn't serious but it did need to be treated,' she explained.
'I went in for a skin check one day, I was diagnosed the next day and had the surgery the third day.'
Cate recently took to Instagram to remind her followers about the importance of getting a skin check:
'I know everyone leads busy lives, but it was a timely reminder for me that we need to look after our health. An hour out of your day once or twice a year is all it takes.'