My thrush turned out to be rare vulval cancer
A woman was diagnosed with stage three vulval cancer - after thinking she just had a bad case of thrush.
Pippa Sharp, 49, found she was experiencing recurring thrush in August 2022 - causing a sore, hard spot on her left labia.
She was prescribed antibiotics by her GP - but four days later, realised the spot wasn’t going away - and tests soon revealed that she had the rare form of cancer.
Pippa Sharp, 49, found she was experiencing recurring thrush in August 2022 - causing a sore, hard spot on her left labia.
She was prescribed antibiotics by her GP - but four days later, realised the spot wasn’t going away - and tests soon revealed that she had the rare form of cancer.
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NewsTranscript
00:00So I, throughout the latter half of 2022, was getting a lot of thrush infections.
00:09One ended up getting me into my GP because it was so bad.
00:14They took great care of me and have continued to do.
00:18And I developed a sore spot on the inside of my left lip down there.
00:25This can be embarrassing to talk about but I really don't have any dignity
00:29where this is concerned anymore. And it just didn't seem to go away.
00:34And over time, I just kept thinking, oh, this is maybe where the thrush is coming from.
00:39I was then diagnosed as diabetic, which is why I was getting the thrush infections
00:44and was put on medication and the infection stopped.
00:47But this soreness had turned into a lump, which was getting quite sore.
00:52So on my first one of my meetings with my diabetes nurse, I mentioned it
00:57and she noticed I had an appointment with the doctor a couple of days later, so extended it.
01:01Went to see the doctor. She took one look at me and she'd looked at me through the
01:06big infections that I'd had. And they normally say, oh, it could be this thing,
01:11or it could be something else. I was told you either got an infected cyst or you've got cancer.
01:17And when I had biopsies, they said there and then, it looks like early stage indicative
01:23vulva cancer. And then went to the consultant, which is Mr. Nugent, who is amazing.
01:32He's incredibly meticulous, very thorough and just a very, very good guy.
01:38And he said to me, yeah, it's early stage cancer. What we'll need to do is remove.
01:44I think they removed about 70 to 70, 80 percent of my left labia, my left lip.
01:49And so I had the surgery, which was actually not too bad. I spent a week in hospital.
01:58So I came down with an infection, went through all the recovery. I had to have district nurses
02:03coming out because I had lymph nodes taken out. I had a drain in my stomach. Unfortunately,
02:07it was found in one of the lymph nodes. In fact, it was in two, but it was encapsulated within
02:12those two, so it had not spread further from those. So it was decided I would need treatment.
02:18So long story short, I ended up having 25 radiotherapy sessions with five chemo. So
02:26the radiotherapy was every day, Monday to Friday, and the chemo was every Wednesday.
02:32And then I was told that I would be on three month checkups, which would just be a physical
02:38examination for two years and then on to six months for the remainder of my life, because
02:44vulva cancer is actually quite a rare cancer. It only affects one in 300 women in the UK.