A bride discovered she had cancer hours before she got married, despite doctors earlier assuring her she was “too fat” to have it.
Claire Boulton popped to the hairdresser’s hours before she was due to say I do to partner Matthew Boulton, in 2019. However, instead of it being a calming experience her world was turned upside down when doctors rang to say they had found cancer in tests taken from an earlier colonoscopy.
The 47-year-old complained to doctors for five years prior due to stomach pains, nausea and blood in her stool but was never taken ‘seriously’. She was left feeling like a ‘burden’ as doctors said she would be losing weight if she had cancer, with one doctor saying she was ‘too fat’ to have the disease while she struggled with weight gain.
However, Claire’s persistence led to her having a colonoscopy which made the shock discovery. Claire, from Thornbury, South Gloucestershire, said: “I was shocked. You can’t write my life.
“On my wedding day I was sitting in the hairdressers that morning [and] got a phone call from the doctors to tell me that they had found cancer. The polyp had been removed from my body but there had been cancer in it. They said ‘by the size of the polyp the possibility was the polyp itself had been growing for at least five years’.
“I thought, ‘all this time of me saying there’s something wrong, actually there was something wrong’. It was a nurse who rang me up and when I said ‘I’m literally sitting in the hairdressers about to get married’ she was like ‘oh my god I’m so sorry, if I had known I wouldn’t have told you’.
“I was a bit numb. It hadn’t really sunk in. I rang him and said ‘I’ll see you in a few hours but guess what I’ve just been told’. He said ‘oh my god are you alright’. I said ‘don’t worry, it’s not in my body now, I don’t have cancer, I had cancer’. I didn’t know I had it because it was in the polyp.
“I didn’t have to have any chemo or anything because it was contained and they removed it. Had they not found it, it could have spread quite quickly. That was a lucky break.
“We went to the registry office with my children and parents. Literally straight after we went to the airport and jumped on a week away to Palma Nova, Spain. That week wasn’t really a honeymoon.
“That whole time it was like s**t, I’ve just found out I’ve had cancer and I still might have it in my body somewhere and I won’t know for six weeks. It played on my mind.”
The former carer is due to have surgery tomorrow to reduce the risk of further cancer spreading. She is urging others to ‘listen to their bodies’ and not be afraid to ask for a second opinion.
On 22 May 2019 she was relieved to be told the cancer had been contained before she was then able to enjoy a more relaxed second ceremony in a small chapel. Claire said: “It’s just insane it happened to be on both of my wedding days.
“That to me is our wedding. Matt always says our wedding anniversary is the day we legally got married but to me that was a sad day finding out I had cancer.
“To me the day I found out I didn’t have it and that I was definitely all clear and stood there in my wedding dress taking that phone call, that is the day I like to celebrate. It’s just insane it happened to be on both of my wedding days.
“It was just amazing and so special. I couldn’t have been happier to do it any other way. It was just me and my husband and two children. “We go back every year to the same destination. That place is our place.”
A spokesperson from the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board said: “We’re sorry to hear of this patient’s experiences and we encourage them to contact the ICB’s customer services team so that it can be fully investigated.”
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