A young woman who found a small rash on her leg was later diagnosed with cancer.
Jessica Hamersley’s seven-inch tumour had been “crushing” her heart but was left undetected for at least six months. The 27-year-old woman had a PET scan, which spotted the mass, and she was diagnosed with stage 2A Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“I remember when I went to the X-ray room I said to the radiologist, this is really dramatic, I’m sorry for wasting your time. Usually with hodgkin lymphoma it’s usually a lymph node swollen in your neck, your groin, your armpit, you have drenching night sweats or you lose loads of weight, you have really itchy skin. You can get loads of other symptoms and I had nothing, ” Jessica, from Harlow, Essex, said.
Jessica initially noticed a red splotch on her left shin which kept disappearing and coming back over the course of one year but put it down to eczema. She said the rash on her left shin had been hot and throbbing, but she assumed it would go away on its own and was just irritated by her perfumed moisturiser.
It was not until her fiancé William Webber, 25, pushed Jessica to get the red mark checked out that she went to her GP who thought the rash could be related to her contraceptive pill. Jessica trialled a different pill but her rash did not go away so she was given an x-ray in October 2023, which revealed she had a mass on her chest.
Over the next few months, Jessica had multiple biopsies at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow to try to establish what it was and eventually underwent a keyhole operation to remove the mass for testing. She was diagnosed with stage 2A Hodgkin’s lymphoma in February and said doctors told her it had been growing for at least six months if not a year.
Her PET scan in March showed the mass on her chest was more than seven inches in size and had been ‘crushing’ her heart even while William was proposing. Doctors told her if they had caught the cancer any later the pressure on her heart would become severe and it would not have been long before the cancer formed lumps on her collarbones and caused her shortness of breath.
Thankfully after an aggressive course of chemotherapy through spinrg, Jessica and has been declared cancer free since August. Jessica is now sharing her story on TikTok to urge anyone with similar symptoms to have them checked.
She said her GP told her that because of what happened to her, if anyone comes in with a similar rash on their leg, they will give them a chest X-ray straight away.
Jessica said: “I sometimes use perfumed moisturiser and sometimes with eczema that can cause my skin to have a little bit of a flare up. Honestly at the time I didn’t think anything serious of it.
“I thought maybe it’s a flare up on my leg or did I catch myself when I was shaving? You never think cancer. A rash on my leg literally saved my life.
“I don’t smoke, I only drink really rarely when I go out. So I was thinking, I’m perfectly healthy, why would I get cancer? I had no cough, when I see the chest x-rays I think oh my god that was sitting on my chest but I felt fine. It’s really strange.”
Jessica said her consultant told her the rash on her leg was actually a condition called erythema nodosum, which causes fat tissue to be inflamed.
According to the NHS website, erythema nodosum is a condition that causes painful patches of skin that look red or darker than the surrounding skin. It usually goes away by itself but can sometimes be a sign of something serious like an inflammatory bowel condition, such as Crohn’s disease.
The NHS state if you have erythema nodosum, you may have flu-like symptoms before or at the same time as you get the patches on your skin. The skin usually heals on its own within three to eight weeks without leaving a scar. But other symptoms, such as joint pain and swelling, can last for several weeks.
Jessica said: “When I spoke to the consultant about it [the rash] he said it’s a really weird way of your body telling you there’s something wrong inside. I thought maybe it was triggered with stress.
“They said it was crushing my heart. It was all crazy and I feel like you don’t process it. I just froze really. I was with my partner and I feel like I zoned out, I wasn’t really listening.
“The whole time they were doing tests they said the worst possibility is cancer so my brain never went there. I thought they had the wrong scan. I said you need to double check.
“It feels like it’s been a dream, a very bad dream. I cried when I was told I was going to lose my hair. Now it’s growing back so it doesn’t phase me as much, I’m used to it.
“Hearing that straight away as a woman I was like oh my god I’m going to lose my hair. I kind of freaked out about that. But you just kind of go into fight or flight mode and it was just survival. It was just what’s next? What do we do?
“It happened so quickly. But my consultant said that if you lose your hair quickly it’s a very good sign that the chemo is working. I looked horrible being bald but that’s what I was clinging to I was like oh my god it must be working then.”
On August 22, she had confirmation her treatment had worked and she was cancer free and was able to ring the bell. To celebrate being cancer free, she is going on holiday to Disneyworld Orlando with her partner.
Jessica said: “It was so emotional. I turned up and I thought it was just going to be me and my fianc and it was his parents and his grandparents and aunt and uncle. They were all standing there waiting.
“That weight just lifted off of me and all of my family’s shoulders. He’s just been amazing. He’s been my rock through it all. All through chemo all we ever spoke about was how much of a good time it would be if we went to Disney together.
“I’m going to go celebrate in the happiest place on earth. I’m still very out of breath and I feel like my joints are still very weak because I got arthritis from the chemotherapy in my hips and spine.
“I’m just so glad it was caught early and the treatment was less than it would have been. I’m very grateful to that GP. I had a consultant say to me, if you’re going to want to get cancer, this is the cancer you want to have.
“It’s just been a bit of a whirlwind. I’ve just used TikTok as my escape kind of. I would say to anybody get anything checked because life can change so quickly.
“Life is so short and you don’t realise that until something like this happens. You’re never promised tomorrow and that’s such a big quote that sits in my head now.
“Cancer completely changes your perspective on life. I used to get angry if someone cut me up when I was driving and now I’m just thinking let it go. I just let everything go now. It’s never that deep now, it’s never that important anymore.”
Jessica, who was working in customer service before her diagnosis, is now recovering from her treatment and building her stamina back up before going back to work. She will need to have follow-up scans and blood tests every few months to check the cancer has not returned.
