A Dolly Parton tribute performer claims she was sent home twice by doctors after finding a small lump on her arm that turned out to be terminal cancer. Carla Palmer, 41, feels deeply “let down” by her care at the hands of NHS medics and believes her condition could have been treated if it was caught earlier.
The award-winning singer, who previously toured the globe as the ‘9 to 5’ hitmaker, first noticed a pea-sized bump on her left forearm three years ago. But when she went to see her GP, Carla claims they said she just had a "swollen lymph node” and it would likely go away over time.
Six months later Carla visited an A&E ward for a second opinion, but she was sent home again after medics allegedly said the bumps were “nothing to worry about”. The performer started experiencing night sweats and fatigue last year after noticing more lumps, before tests revealed she actually had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
The rare cancer develops in the lymphatic system and spreads throughout the body and doctors have said her disease cannot be cured. Carla now feels “devastated” after being forced to give up on her hard-earned career while being denied the chance to fight the terrible disease.
She said: “I just felt let down at the time. They did say it was curable at stage one. For me to be allowed to go past that without a proper investigation is devastating.
“I feel like the doctors do fob you off. You have to advocate yourself and you have to persist with the problem.
"It’s easy for a doctor to send you away and for you never to go back. Not being able to perform has been absolutely devastating – that’s the hardest part. I’d built up a brand and a network and all seems to be for nothing.”
Carla, from Salford, Greater Manchester, said she first noticed the lump on her left forearm in early 2020, just before the Covid pandemic. So she decided to pay a visit to her local GP clinic in case it needed further investigation.
Carla said: “It was just a small lump the size of a pea. I’d had it for a little while. The doctor just said that it was a ‘swollen lymph node’.
“They said: ‘That happens if your body is fighting an infection. It will go down over time. As long as it doesn’t swell or grow, leave it'.”
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During the previous years, Carla had launched her Dolly Parton tribute act, which had won awards and led her to perform on cruise ships. After a concert six months later, she decided to get a second opinion when she was warned by a friend that the lump could be something more sinister. But when Carla went to Salford Royal Hospital’s A&E unit, she claims a doctor again told her that the lump wasn’t something she needed to be very concerned about.
Carla said: “It was a lady. She said it was nothing to worry about. She felt it and said it wasn’t moveable, so it was fine, and it was a swollen lymph node.
“I later had Covid, and my glands swelled up, so I assumed it was just because my body was fighting off that. But the lump never went down.”
Carla said over the following few years she had noticed further lumps on her body - under her armpit, near her collar bone and behind her ear. But she didn’t go to get a further opinion from her GP until last year when she started getting night sweats and feeling heavily fatigued. Her doctor then sent her for blood tests, scans, a mammogram and a biopsy, where she got the crushing news that she had incurable cancer on July 11, 2022.
Carla said: “I was absolutely devastated, I couldn’t believe it. It really brought my life into perspective. For the first few weeks, I was just trying to wrap my head around it.
“I spoke to my close friends, but I was trying to hide it from other people. I wasn’t ready for my life to change that much. I was self-employed and I needed to work.”
Carla put off treatment while trying to save cash by performing, but when her condition worsened she agreed to undergo chemotherapy and immunotherapy. She’s now been forced to shelve her career altogether as doctors worry that she could become sick from contact with large crowds. And she’s decided not to ask her specialists how long she might have left to live as she’s more interested in taking her life day by day. She added that since her diagnosis the NHS' care had been excellent.
Carla added: “I never asked for my prognosis. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to concentrate on thinking about the next steps of my treatment.”
Her friends have now set up a GoFundMe page to help her with her daily needs.
Salford Royal Hospital has been contacted for comment.
