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In this article we present a narrative approach to conceptualizing and representing patients’ experiences of healthcare across a trajectory of care. We empirically investigate, analyze and represent the diagnostic and care trajectories of people with the aggressive skin cancer melanoma, conceiving a model of lived narratives in which the patients are the central characters moving through a longitudinal series of events. Melanoma is a malignant form of skin cancer that makes heavy, long-term demands on patients and healthcare resources. The perspectives of people with melanoma are under-represented in studies of melanoma patient experience. In our study, we make that missing perspective visible. From data collected on the pre-symptom ordinary world of the patient through phases of medical care and into resolution of the initial disease presentation, we identify the thick plot of patients’ care experiences in an archetypal narrative form of patient journey. Our findings identify the potential of this analytic framework as a flexible methodology for the reflection of outset-to-outcome melanoma care experiences in healthcare policy and practice.