Overview
- The 51-year-old from Grimsby is spending this Christmas cancer-free after being told on August 23, 2024—her 50th birthday—that she had reached the five-year all-clear.
- She first noticed a pea-sized lump on her neck in December 2015 and was diagnosed in March 2016 with metastatic base-of-tongue cancer that had spread to lymph nodes.
- A six-week regimen of daily radiotherapy with chemotherapy in 2016 put the disease into remission by November that year.
- The cancer returned in 2019; a neck dissection did not clear all disease, and she proceeded with a second course of radiotherapy—described as carrying a 20% fatal risk—finishing treatment on December 9, 2019 after a hospital stay.
- She continues to manage swallowing and taste problems and now volunteers with Macmillan Cancer Support, with reporting noting UK mouth-cancer diagnoses have risen by more than a third over the past decade.