I thought I’d pulled a muscle while feeding my hungry kids breakfast – then I was given a 50/50 chance of survival
A MUM who thought she’d pulled a muscle while giving her kids breakfast was horrified when her injury turned out to be stage four cancer.
Claire Turner, 43, was in the front passenger seat of her car as her husband Mark, 49, drove them and their three children on a family getaway in October 2023.
As she turned to pass a croissant to 11-year-old Annabelle behind her, she felt a pain in her right shoulder.
Doctors initially believed it to be a torn ligament, but Claire became concerned weeks later when she noticed a slight swelling on her shoulder blade the size of a £2 coin.
The accountant’s shoulder continued to balloon over the next few weeks and it became so tender she couldn’t even wear a bra or carry a bag.
After multiple trips to her GP and hospital, Claire underwent a biopsy on the 2.8in (7cm) mass in January 2024 that revealed it was a stage four cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM).
CMM is a type of skin cancer that develops in cells called melanocytes, which produce melanin and give our skin its colour.
The mum-of-three, who used sun beds in her 20s, is now waiting on a scan that will reveal how the cancer is progressing.
She is urging people to avoid harmful UV rays to avoid the same fate.
Claire, from Didcot, Oxfordshire, said: “It was a blessing that injury happened and that I pushed it.
“I don’t know what I did that day but obviously some movement made that tumour, that had been under there for a long time, swell and move.
“We were off to the beach for the weekend with friends. We had a packed breakfast for the children.
“As we were heading down, they all said they were hungry.
“I passed breakfast, including a croissant, banana and bottle of water, back to one of them and I felt like I pulled a muscle.
“I thought, ‘That’s painful’ but then I carried on with the day.
“It was pretty painful carrying a bag, and that night it was quite painful to lean back on it.”
After returning home, the accountant went to hospital, where an X-ray suggested it was nothing serious.
Doctors reportedly told her it appeared to be a torn ligament and she could go home.
But weeks later, Claire noticed her shoulder looked slightly swollen while travelling to work.
I went into a spiral over. It was awful. I was in the depths of despair.
Claire Turner
“I’m not one for going to the doctors but it just didn’t sit right,” she said.
“They said it looked like a torn ligament and to just rest it. Nothing at all showed up on this X-ray in terms of tumours.
“They gave me painkillers, told me to keep it strapped up and rest it for a couple of weeks, and that it should settle down, and it did.
“Then in November, when I was travelling to work and carrying my rucksack, I thought, ‘Oh, my shoulder is aching a little bit, I’ll go and look in the mirror’.
“I saw that it was slightly swollen so I went to the GP and [was told] that shoulder injuries can take a while to heal.”
The mum booked an online doctor’s appointment after noticing “substantial swelling” and was referred to an orthopaedic consultant in December.
After having an MRI scan, she was transferred to a sarcoma unit and faced an agonising wait over Christmas, “expecting the worst”.
‘Expecting the worst’
Claire said: “By this point it was quite apparent. I couldn’t carry a bag or wear a bra.
“I went into a spiral over Christmas. It was awful, just horrendous, I was expecting the worst.
“It’s the lowest I’ve felt in the whole journey.
“I went down Google rabbit holes. It’s the worst thing you can do when you’ve got a potential diagnosis hanging over you.
“When you’re new to this world and catapulted into it, it’s an absolute minefield of where you’re getting the information from.
“I was in the depths of despair.”
Despite her extensive research, Claire was stunned when a biopsy on January 26 revealed she had stage four CMM.
“I was winded. It threw me sideways, I was just shocked,” she said.
“Melanoma is a dodgy mole and it goes from there, at least that’s what I thought.
“It starts with a skin lesion, you look at it and ignore it – that’s what I believed skin cancer was.
“I came away knowing it was stage four. The doctor said I had a 50/50 chance of coming out of the other side of this.
“I instantly felt alright. I thought, ‘I’ll take those odds and I’ll run with it and I’m going to be alright’.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some really down and bad days but I was alright with it.
“After all the waiting, there was a sense of relief. They had a plan, it was given to me on a plate and I was able to take it away and digest it.
“There was no primary on my skin. My initial concern was my shoulder because that’s the one I could see [but] that possibly wasn’t the initial tumour site.
“The nurse said, ‘It could be that there was something on the skin and your body healed it, but the cancer cells got so deep that they stayed in your body and travelled around for months or even years and created tumours’.”
What is melanoma, what are the symptoms and how can you prevent it?
Melanoma is the most serious type of skin cancer that has a tendency to spread around the body.
It is diagnosed 16,000 times per year, and tragically takes the lives of 2,340 people per year.
The number of people being diagnosed with melanoma is increasing, and it is the 5th most common cancer in the UK.
But it is also one of the most preventable cancers, with 86 per cent of cases in the UK avoidable.
The best way to protect yourself from melanoma is to be sun safe – wear SPF every day, wear a hat and sunglasses and keep out of the sun in the hottest hours. It is also advised to avoid sunbeds.
People who are fair-skinned, have blue or green eyes, blonde or red hair and a large number of freckles or moles are more likely to get skin cancer.
Surgery is the main treatment for melanoma, particularly if it is found early. This will involve removing the affected tissue in the skin.
Radiotherapy, medicines and chemotherapy are also sometimes used to try and stop the cancer from growing. Treatment depends on the severity of the disease.
What are the symptoms?
The key thing to look out for are changes to an existing mole, or a new mole on your skin.
Most experts recommend using the simple “ABCDE” rule to look for symptoms of melanoma skin cancer, which can appear anywhere on the body.
There are five letters/words to remember:
- Asymmetrical – melanomas usually have two very different halves and are an irregular shape
- Border – melanomas usually have a notched or ragged border
- Colours – melanomas will usually be a mix of two or more colours
- Diameter – most melanomas are usually larger than 6mm in diameter
- Enlargement or elevation – a mole that changes size over time is more likely to be a melanoma
A mole that changes size, shape or colour may be a melanoma.
But other signs to look out for include moles that are:
- Swollen and sore
- Bleeding
- Itchy
- Crusty
How deadly is it?
Melanoma is a deadly form of skin cancer.
The outlook of a person’s disease depends on the stage of the cancer when it was diagnosed.
Survival is better for women than it is for men.
“We don’t know exactly why this is. It may be because women are more likely to see a doctor about their melanoma at an earlier stage,” says Cancer Research UK.
The charity says that generally, statistics show that in England, more than 85 out of every 100 people (more than 85 per cent) will survive their melanoma for 10 years or more after they are diagnosed.
- Around 100 per cent in England diagnosed with melanoma at stage 1 – when the cancer cells are only in the top layer of skin – will survive for five years or more after diagnosis.This drops to 80 per cent for stage 2.
- Some 70 per cent live for a further five years when they are diagnosed in stage 3, which is when the cancer has started to spread to nearby lymph nodes.
- At stage 4, when the melanoma has spread elsewhere in the body, almost 30 per cent survive their cancer for 5 years or more.
Cancer Research says the stage 4 data does not account for age differences. Age can affect outlook and younger people have a better prognosis than older people.
Age can affect outlook and younger people have a better prognosis than older people.
What is melanoma?
Melanocytes are cells in the skin that give us the colour of our skin because they produce a pigment, known as melanin.
When you sit in the sun, melanocytes produce more pigment (a sun tan), which spreads to other skin cells to protect them from the sun’s rays.
But melanocytes are also where cancer starts.
Too much UV causes sunburn, and this is a sign of damage to the skin’s DNA.
The UV triggers changes in the melanocytes, which makes the genetic material become faulty and cause abnormal cell growth.
People who burn easily are more at risk of skin cancer because their cells do not produce as much pigment to protect their skin.
Those with albinism are at the most risk because their skin produces no pigment at all.
Claire was given three rounds of immunotherapy to shrink her tumours but was forced to stop in August after it caused inflammation on her pituitary gland and optic nerve.
She refused to find out where her cancer had spread until June.
Claire said: “I’m grateful I got it checked out. I was already stage four at that point.
“My nurse said to me that 10 years ago with my diagnosis, I would be given six to seven months to live. That was quite shocking.
“Immunotherapy has massively changed that, I’ve just passed a year since the initial shoulder injury.
“It wasn’t until early June that I decided to find out where it had spread to.
“There was disease in five sections of my liver, both thighs, my glute, my lymph nodes, around my shoulder and it was on either side of my clavicle as well.
“It wasn’t in my brain, which I was pleased about, but it was in my lungs as well.
“I was really pleased I hadn’t found that out earlier.
“I think if I’d known, I instantly wouldn’t have been able to breathe, but that would’ve been panic and anxiety rather than cancer.
“My scan in August was a good response; lots of the tumours had gone.”
I don’t want people to feel sorry for me. I feel positive in my journey and where I’m at
Claire Turner
Claire is now urging others to look after their skin to prevent the same thing happening to them.
“It’s about awareness, it’s not just waiting for something to pop up on your skin,” she said.
“It’s about knowing the damage UV rays do to your skin.
“I still sit outside but I’ll sit in the shade. I’ll wear a hat or I won’t have bare shoulders, it’s just about knowing [how to protect yourself].
“It’s vital not to use sun beds and not to get burned. Sun damage has caused my cancer, it could have been avoided.
“Fake tan doesn’t last and a real tan doesn’t last, but which one is safer?
“I’ve got lots of moles on my skin and they’ve been checked. You must protect and take take of your skin.
“I’ve been quite open about my story and I’ve got a lot of support, which has been a massive help in getting through. People’s well wishes are all positive.
“I’ve not had a big pity party, I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, but I want people to wish me well.
“I feel positive on my journey and where I’m at.”
Cancer screenings in England
CATCHING cancer early gives you the best chance of survival, and a huge part of that is attending regular screenings.
NHS programmes can help diagnose the disease, or risk of it, and improve the likelihood of successful treatment.
There are three national screening programmes in England: cervical screening, breast screening and bowel screening.
“If you are eligible, please make every effort to have your screening test as they can detect a problem early, before you have any symptoms. ,” the NHS says.
“Finding out about a problem early can mean that treatment is more effective.”
Cervical screening
This is offered in England to people with a cervix aged 25 to 64 and is routinely carried out every three years up to the age of 49, and every five from 50 to 64.
Depending on the result, people may be recalled earlier.
During a cervical screening, samples are tested for high risk Human Papillomavirus (HPV), which causes nearly all cervical cancers.
Those that test positive are then analysed further.
Breast screening
Breast screenings, which involve an X-ray test called a mammogram that can spot cancers when they are too small to see or feel, are usually offered to women aged 50 to 71 in England.
But the NHS is trialling them for women under 50 if they have a high risk of developing breast cancer.
Bowel screening
This test detects whether patients are showing any early signs of cancer.
It is available to everyone aged 54 to 74, with the programme gradually expanding to those 50-plus after The Sun’s No Time 2 Lose campaign.
Currently, those aged 54 to 74 are automatically sent an at-home test kit every two years, so make sure your GP has your correct address.
The at-home test involves providing a small poo sample to be checked for tiny amounts of blood, which could be caused by cancer.
If you’re 75 or over, you can ask for a kit every two years by phoning the free bowel cancer screening helpline on 0800 707 60 60.
Source: NHS