'My fat was cancer'

Pulling on my favourite pair of trousers, I paused, wiggled a bit, then tried again. It was no use. They wouldn’t budge past my hips.

Funny, I thought. Last week they fitted perfectly. I was 23 and at 177cm, I’d always maintained a weight of 66kg and a dress size of 10-12 without having to diet or exercise. But now suddenly I was gaining weight – despite not changing my eating habits at all.

A month passed and I bought clothes in the next size up. Soon they didn’t fit either. I gained 6kg… then another 6kg… after four months, I stepped on the scales and gasped. I couldn’t believe it. I’d gained 38kg in 16 weeks.I went straight to my GP.

‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ I said. ‘I keep gaining weight but I’m not eating any more than I was a few months ago.’

The doctor raised an eyebrow.

‘You just need to exercise and eat properly,’ he said, looking me up and down.

I left in tears, feeling like a fool. It had nothing to do with what I was eating. What was wrong with me?

Luckily my family and my fiancé Neal Bateman, 31, were supportive.

I even joined a slimming club with Neal’s mum. ‘I must just need to diet a bit,’ I said. I wasn’t even overeating but I still tried counting calories, cutting down on carbs and watching everything that went into my mouth.

A few weeks later, I hadn’t lost a kilo. I went back to the GP. ‘I’ve tried dieting and it hasn’t made any difference,’ I said. He sighed again.

‘You are just eating the wrong foods. Junk food,’ he said. ‘You need to burn off more calories. It’s simple…’ I was so upset, I ran home in tears. A few days later, I looked in the mirror and fear lurched through me. There was a large bulge on my neck. It was the shape of a banana – curved, sticking out under the skin. ‘You need to see someone,’ Neal said. I went back to a new GP.

He took one look and referred me to hospital. I went to Southmead Hospital, in Bristol, and had a biopsy done on my neck, as well as a scan.

‘We’ll keep you in until we get the results,’ a doctor said. I was given a bed on the ward and told to wait.

But just hours later, a consultant appeared at my bedside.

He sat on the edge of my bed and looked at his notes. ‘I know that you are not fat, and your weight gain has nothing to with what you eat,’ he said. ‘We’ve found a tumour called a papillary thyroid cancerous tumour. It’s what’s causing the weight gain.’ 

I sat there in complete shock. For months, my doctor had been telling me I was fat, lazy and eating junk. Now at last someone believed me – but it came at a price. My diagnosis.

‘So it’s cancerous?’ I asked.

He nodded. The 43mm tumour had attached itself from my neck to my breast bone and shoulder blade, growing right against my thyroid and stopping it working properly, causing my weight gain. As a healthcare assistant, I knew it was serious.

I was allowed home. Neal was at work. I couldn’t bring myself to call him and tell him I had cancer. I had to do that face to face. Instead I called Mum and, sobbing, told her what the specialist had said.

‘It’s going to be OK, love,’ she said. Mum told Neal’s mum and she rang him – so it wasn’t long before he rushed home to my side.

‘We’ll get through this,’ he said, hugging me. I broke down in his arms. I was terrified. We were engaged to be married. We’d set up home. Life had been so perfect. Now what did the future hold?

Two weeks later, I went back to hospital. I was prepped for the operating theatre to remove the tumour on my right side as well as lymph nodes in my neck. I said goodbye to Neal and my parents. Tears pricked my eyes as I was wheeled away. Inside, I was given an anaesthetic. 

When I woke up, I was in intensive care. The operation was meant to have taken two hours but had taken over eight as the tumour had been embedded in one of my tongue nerves, which they had removed as well.

My thyroid and lymph nodes had been removed too. I had two drains each side of my neck. I’d had a partial neck dissection, which had left me with a huge scar. I reached a hand up and felt a train of something hard and cold in my neck: metal staples. They were all up my neck, holding my scar together while it healed.

‘You’ll be OK,’ Neal whispered to me. ‘It’s all over.’

I stayed in intensive care for four days and was in a ward another three days. Six days after surgery I had my staples and drains removed.

Eating was hard. I had to eat soft food like mashed potato and soups as I had to retrain my mouth to eat again. Doctors also gave me thyroxine medication to replace my not having a thyroid. The medicine provides thyroid hormone, which is important for maintaining normal mental and physical activity. It is also used to treat certain types of thyroid disorders, including thyroid cancer.

At first life was hard. My speech took a while to get back to normal and I felt self-conscious about my scar.

Then I found out about a charity called the Youth Cancer Trust.

They provide holidays for sufferers to meet other young people in the same situation.

Neal and I went along to the Youth Cancer Trust House in Bournemouth for a break.

There, we met dozens of other people who had suffered or were fighting cancer. It was a huge help for Neal as at last he could see that the weight gain, my ups and downs… it had all been due to this nasty disease.

During the week away, we passed a jewellery shop and stepped inside. ‘Let’s do it,’ Neal said. So we chose our wedding rings.

Six months later I went back to work as a senior palliative carer, part-time. Three months after that, I was given the all-clear. It was nine months since my initial diagnosis. 

Finally, Neal and I could look to the future. We’d been engaged two years and had wanted to marry, but my illness had halted that. Now we both knew what we wanted to do. The weight I’d gained was dropping off and I was feeling more confident.

We started planning. Just two months later, in May 2013, we said our vows in front of 50 member of our family and our closest friends.

Afterwards, we longed to start a family. But two things held us back – firstly, I was having radioactive iodine therapy to kill off any remaining thyroid cells, and had to wait six months after that before trying for a baby.

Secondly, doctors had warned me it might not happen at all. ‘Hormonally, after the thyroid is removed, it can be difficult to conceive,’ a doctor warned me. I tried not to think about it.

But six months after my treatment finished, I did a pregnancy test. Two blue lines appeared. I was pregnant.

Nine months later I gave birth to a baby girl, Eva, now 17 months.

I still pinch myself at how lucky I was.

I am now passionate about raising awareness of the signs of thyroid cancer. So many GPs aren’t aware of the signs, or simply accuse you of being fat or lazy. I am so glad I sought a second opinion or I might not be here today, so happy as a mother and wife. 

☞ For more information about the work the Youth Cancer Trust does, visit www.youthcancertrust.org