Mom of 3 Says 'Pulled Muscle' Was First Sign of Stage 4 Melanoma, Adds She Never Had a 'Dodgy Mole' or Lesion on Her Skin

• Claire Turner, 43, thought she had pulled a muscle while giving her daughter something to eat – but when the pain persisted, she sought medical attention
• At first she was told it was a torn ligament, but she persisted with the doctors – and discovered the swelling was due to a tumor and stage four melanoma
• Turner said she never had any lesions or moles on her skin – which occur in about 3% of melanoma cases – and that doctors gave her a “50/50 chance” of survival

The mum-of-3 thought she had pulled a muscle in her shoulder – but the pain and swelling turned out to be a sign of stage 4 melanoma.

In October 2023, Claire Turner (43) was driving in the passenger seat while her husband Mark was driving the family on a weekend holiday. She reached out to pass her daughter breakfast — a croissant, a banana and a bottle of water — and “it felt like I pulled a muscle,” Turner told Kennedy News and Media via The Daily Mail.

“I was like, ‘that hurts,’ but then I got on with my day,” she said. “It was quite painful to carry the bag and that night it was quite painful to lean against it.”

Claire Turner shares a lump on her shoulder that turned out to be a tumor.

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When the family returned to their home in the English town of Didcot, South Oxfordshire, Turner sought medical attention for her still sore shoulder – and was told she had a torn ligament.

“They gave me pain meds and told me to keep him tied up and rest him for a couple of weeks and he should calm down – and he did,” she said. But a few weeks later her shoulder began to swell. Doctors told her that “shoulder injuries can take time to heal”, but she decided to seek a second opinion – and was referred to an orthopedist.

“By this point it was pretty visible and it was quite a big swelling on my shoulder. I couldn’t carry a bag or a bra,” she said, who underwent an MRI and was referred to a cancer clinic – and spent last Christmas waiting for the results of her tests.

“I went into a spiral over Christmas. It was awful, I expected the worst. It’s the lowest I’ve felt on the whole trip,” she told the newspaper.

Claire and Mark Turner.

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The diagnosis, she says, was stage 4 melanoma — but she never had a “mole,” she says. “It starts with a skin lesion, you look at it and ignore it, that’s what I thought skin cancer was.”

But Turner said that “there was no primary [site where the cancer started] on my skin” and added that although there was no visible spot on her skin, “the cancer cells went so deep that they traveled for months or even years and created other tumors.”

According to the National Library of Medicine, “approximately 3.2% of all melanomas present at distant sites with no known primary site.”

Although she didn’t have a visible birthmark, Turner said, “I used tanning beds and got sunburnt looking for a tan.”

Since her diagnosis last Christmas, tumors have been discovered elsewhere around her shoulders, as well as in her liver and in the muscles around her buttocks and legs.

Claire Turner.

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Turner underwent immunotherapy — which the Cleveland Clinic explains “may help some people with cancer live longer” because the treatment “uses your body’s immune system to find and destroy cancer cells.”

Unfortunately, Turner had to stop when she developed complications with the inflammation.

“The nurse told me that 10 years ago, with my diagnosis, they would have given me six to seven months to live. That was pretty shocking,” Turner said.

Her prognosis, while better than a decade ago, is still sobering: “The doctor said I have a 50/50 chance of coming out the other side of this.”

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education