A brave Ayrshire mum has told how months of back pain turned out to be stage 4 cancer.
Nursing assistant Lauren Boyle, 35, has faced a year of gruelling treatment on cancer which has spread to her blood, bones and kidneys.
The mum-of-two from Tarbolton has undergone intense blasts of radiotherapy to try and stop the cancer in its tracks since being given the shock diagnosis last February.
Lauren was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after being rushed into hospital when she became so weak she struggled to keep her eyes open.
The former Ayr and Biggart Hospital worker spent six months in agony, with doctors telling her she was suffering back and leg pain due to her work.
Lauren, who lives at home with her two kids Scott, 12, and Faith, six, battled to get diagnostic scans after knowing “something wasn’t right,” and she faced weeks of frantically calling her GP in a desperate search for answers.
Lauren told Ayrshire Live: “I had a sore back and a sore leg, it was so hard to see doctors. It was during the pandemic and the pain was unbearable for six months.
“I work for the NHS, I work in hospitals as a nursing assistant. I spent time in Covid wards during the pandemic – they thought I might have done something to my back during that.
“I kept trying to contact the doctors, they would say you’re too young to have a sore back, they sent me physio but deep down I knew it was more than what they were making it out to be.”
Lauren even decided to go to Carrick Glen for a second opinion, but the then private hospital was unable to diagnose her problems.
Lauren added: “They just gave me a consultation then sent me packing, my mum and dad paid for me to go there.”
Lauren has told how it wasn’t until a junior doctor noticed something was wrong with her scan whilst she was in hospital that she finally got the diagnosis.
Lauren said: “I became so lethargic that I could hardly keep awake. I looked terrible.
“The doctor sent me to hospital and I was there for a month.
“It took a junior doctor who looked at my scan and said he didn’t like the look of my bones.
“I had to get a bone marrow test and that confirmed it.”
Lauren added: “I was initially really relieved, I always knew something wasn’t right, the worst thing was just waiting.
“It was difficult to be told I had cancer, but once I started my treatment some of my symptoms improved.
“I was in so much pain before I was diagnosed, I couldn’t properly be a mum before.”
Since her diagnosis Lauren has endured a host of treatment including chemotherapy and 10 rounds of intense radiotherapy.
In December last year she was rushed into hospital after contracting sepsis with the treatment weakening her immune system.
And at the start of this year she was given the news that a new chemotherapy treatment was working.
Now she wants to raise awareness of the disease and has urged anyone who thinks there is something wrong to get checked.
She added: “I just want to spread the word, if I can help anybody get a quicker diagnosis I’ll be happy.
"It was a long road for me to get answers but people shouldn't ignore symptoms, if they think something is wrong don't give up searching for answers.
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