How doctor spotted my cancer as I shopped on honeymoon
TYING the knot in front of her family in an intimate beach ceremony on Cyprus was understandably a memorable occasion for Danielle McCulloch. But the honeymoon was unforgettable for another reason too – after a chance encounter with a local doctor saved Mrs McCulloch’s life.
The mother- of-two was in a supermarket when the doctor saw a lump on her neck and told her to get it checked out. Tests at home revealed Mrs McCulloch had advanced thyroid cancer and the gland was removed by surgeons as soon as the risk became evident.
She was buying groceries with her grandmother Wendy, who lives on the Mediterranean island, when they bumped into the doctor and started chatting.
‘She is my nan’s doctor so she was introducing us,’ said Mrs McCulloch. ‘Almost immediately she asked what the lump on my neck was and whether I’d had it checked.
‘I had only recently had my second child and had put around a stone of weight on, so I just put it down to changes in my body.
‘I didn’t really know how to take what she was saying as it was quite personal and out of the blue. But she was quite insistent that when I got back to the UK I needed to go and see someone.’
After returning to her home to Peterborough in Cambridge- shire, Mrs McCulloch, 26, went to her own GP, who referred her to a specialist.
A biopsy didn’t reveal anything unusual but experts at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge decided to remove the 1.5in lump on the left side of her neck as a precaution and tests revealed that the tissue was malignant.
A second operation was arranged to remove the remainder of the thyroid gland, which consists of two lobes, before she was blasted with a radioactive iodine treatment to destroy any remaining cancerous cells.
Mrs McCulloch, a cleaner, said: ‘When I look back on when they
‘I couldn’t take it in’
gave me the news, it was like one of those adverts where you can see them talking but can’t hear what they’re saying.
‘It was like the doctor went all fuzzy. I was listening but not taking it in. All I could think about was my family and my two young children.’
Cancer of the thyroid is quite rare, with around 3,000 people in the UK affected. It causes hardly any symptoms until the gland becomes enlarged.
The life-saving encounter happened in May 2015 when she married her fiance Matt, 27, who runs a groundworks company, in front of family including their children Louis, nine, and Imo- gen, four. Mrs McCulloch had to remain in isolation away from her children during the iodine treatment and has been left with a scar on her neck.
She will also take medication for the rest of her life to replace the hormones the thyroid produces that regulate the body’s metabolic rate as well as the heart and digestive functions.
But doctors have since told her she could have died if the cancer had not been caught until later. ‘I’m so grateful to that doctor for telling me what she did,’ she added. ‘I didn’t think it was anything to worry about.
‘Without the push to get it checked out it could have been a completely different story.’
Mrs McCulloch hopes her story will encourage other people to investigate any changes they notice on their body, whether big or small.
‘It only takes ten minutes and it could save your life,’ she said.