'One question in Turkish baths proved GP's diagnosis wrong, I was seriously ill'

06 December 2023 , 13:10

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Claire O'Shea said she had been told she was suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (Image: bbc.co.uk)

A woman found out she had terminal cancer after a lump was discovered by a Turkish masseur - with UK doctors having dismissed it as irritable bowel syndrome.

Claire O’Shea, 41, from Cardiff, told how she visited a Turkish baths on holiday and it was while she was having a massage that the abnormality was found. She claimed that she had been going back and forth to her GP for nearly two years without finding out the cause of her problem.

“I knew it wasn’t IBS,” said the charity worker, who was given 12 to 18 months to live when doctors finally diagnosed her with a rare cancer called uterine leiomyosarcoma. It was at stage four and spread to her liver, lungs and bones.

She was on holiday when a masseur found a lump (bbc.co.uk)

Claire was on a trip to Istanbul with friends when the woman giving the massage asked her if she was pregnant. "When I was in there the woman stopped the massage and in broken English said: 'Lady, baby?' thinking I was pregnant. I went white. I knew I wasn’t pregnant but it all became very apparent to me then that the lump was, actually, probably in my reproductive organs," she said, reported WalesOnline.

"And I remember talking to my friends like: 'My God. How is a Turkish masseuse doing a better job of telling me what’s wrong with me than my GP has for months?'." Claire shared her story with an inquiry by the Welsh Senedd’s health and social care committee because she wanted to raise awareness. "There has to be something dramatic to change women's experiences," said Claire.

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She went for scans after returning from holiday (bbc.co.uk)

The Welsh government has said that support for gynaecological cancer services has been introduced. The health and social care committee heard evidence from several women who also felt their concerns were ignored and its report raised concern that they were “dismissed, downplayed and unheard”.

Claire was referred for a scan straight after her return from holiday and she found out she had non cancerous growths around her womb. She had the lump, that was the size of a grapefruit removed eight months later but a biopsy confirmed it was uterine leiomyosarcoma - a cancer of the soft tissue in her uterus.

"The prognosis is generally only 12 to 18 months because it's so rare, there's not a lot of research into it and women generally get diagnosed later," said Claire, reported the BBC. Further scans showed that the cancer had spread to her liver, lungs and hip. She has had six chemotherapy cycles and the tumour has now stabilised.

"I'm 12 months clear and feeling quite healthy at the moment, so I've outlived my prognosis already, which is promising in a way," Claire said. "You can't live in anger if you don't know how much longer you have to live, so I'm trying to channel it into raising awareness. In Wales we have a woman who's a health minister, we have a government who said they want to be the first feminist government and we talk about wanting an equal Wales, but they're not translating into better care for women."

Tim Hanlon