MUM-OF-TWO Vicky Fenwick believes fate meant her thyroid cancer was caught early enough to be cured. She tells health reporter Kate Liptrot about her fight against the disease and how she has bounced back to train for the Great North Run half marathon.

WHEN nursery teacher Vicky Fenwick was diagnosed with thyroid cancer she made the decision not to tell her children and even tried to keep the diagnosis from her family.

Then 32, Vicky and her husband Carl tried to protect their children Tyler, ten, and Molly May, eight, from the diagnosis, and even underplayed it to her brother and sisters.

"My children's only knowledge of cancer was that it takes people away," Vicky said, adding, "It was hard to tell people, I felt bad for them."

It was a very worrying time but now, more than five years after the diagnosis, Vicky has been given the all-clear and she firmly believes fate and good luck led to her early diagnosis and survival from the disease.

It was on a routine visit to the doctors, when her GP spotted what she thought was a thyroid cyst in her neck. Although several biopsies failed to find it was a cancerous tumour, when it started to press against her windpipe - another key moment in catching it early - Vicky had to go into surgery.

She recovered well from the routine operation at York Hospital, but as her consultant had a policy of keeping patients overnight she was kept on the ward. It was another moment of luck, Vicky said. Hours later her neck began to clot, causing agonising pain.

"The nurse gave me a mirror and my neck was bigger than my head - it was like something out of a horror film," Vicky said, "The last thing I knew I was rushed to surgery."

Surgeons stopped the blood, saving her life, and Vicky was sent home but when she returned to hospital ten days later she was given the news she had thyroid cancer and faced a wait to find whether the cancer had spread.

"I went into shock. I'm the biggest pessimist and even I didn't see that coming," Vicky said, "The worst thing was the fear. The fear of being taken away from my children was like nothing I have ever known.

"But my consultant Andrew Coatesworth has been amazing and he rushed the results through, writing to me a week later to tell me the cancer had gone no further."

Surgery removed the rest of the thyroid and Vicky then had radioactive iodine therapy to kill the cancer cells, meaning she had to be in isolation for days in hospital.

Now 38, Vicky has celebrated the five year all clear point and said she feels so lucky to have survived she is throwing herself into fundraising for Cancer Research by taking part in the Great North Run later this year.

"It sounds so dramatic but in layman's terms I got off lightly, which is why I wanted to give something back."

She will be running in memory of relatives and the daughter of a friend to have died from cancer and in honour of her friend Paula Gonul, who was undergoing treatment for a brain tumour at the same time, and gave each other support. Paula later passed away at the age of 39.

"I have done the Race for Life but I have never, never done any real running in my life, not since PE lessons at school. It's been really hard and I have started from scratch, Vicky said, "The fact is I am here and I'm going to do it and that's what I'll think when I'm running."


VICKY'S fundraising has nearly reached £1000 with month to go and looks set to be bolstered even further.

Her brother Craig Atkin, 28, has offered to donate ten per cent of the final total - which he said he is becoming apprehensive about as Vicky looks set to raise a small fortune

He said about her fight against cancer: "She kept it all to herself as she didn't want to worry anyone. She's the oldest of all of me and my sisters and I think she feels she needs to protect us.

"I didn't think she would raise this much.

"She's done her training from scratch and I've been really impressed how far she's come so quickly."

Craig will also be running in the York Marathon in aid of the Jane Tomlinson appeal.

To sponsor Vicky, visit http://www.justgiving.com/Vicky-Fenwick-Was-Atkin2