Shannon Frost was up until the early hours preparing for the nuptials when she found the pain to be increasing
A bride-to-be who dismissed her shoulder pain as a result of hunching over while crafting DIY decorations for her wedding was shocked to discover she had blood cancer. Shannon Frost, 31, was up late preparing for her big day with husband Richard, 31, when she noticed her pain was escalating.
After tying the knot on August 5, she called 111 on September 3 and went to hospital suspecting a blood clot, but doctors diagnosed her with a frozen shoulder. Following another blood test at her GP’s, Shannon received a call the next day, September 11, urging her to rush to A&E immediately due to ‘huge concern’ over her inflammatory markers.
CT scans and a biopsy on a 12cm wide mass in her chest later confirmed on September 13, 2024, that she had non-Hodgkin Lymphoma – a type of blood cancer that develops in the lymphatic system.
The mass was pressing on a nerve in Shannon’s diaphragm that was connected to her shoulder, causing her severe pain. After six rounds of chemotherapy at New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton, Shannon went into remission in February 2025.
Shannon, a customer success account manager from Wolverhampton, said: “It was running up to the wedding in August which for us is a mad time anyway with five family birthdays all within a week of each other.
“Throwing a wedding on top of that was really daft to be honest. I did a lot of DIY for the wedding and I was up until 3am crafting using a craft knife and I had pain in my shoulder but I put it down to that purely because I was hunched over so much.
“I went for a blood test and then I was up in Newcastle for work. My GP was ringing me from their personal mobile. She said my inflammatory marker was over 2,000 and anything over 500 is a huge concern.
“She said I need you to go to AandE now you’ve 100 per cent got a blood clot you need to ask for this injection for a blood clot immediately upon arrival.
“They gave me the injection and said go back to your hotel and come back for 8am but while you’re here let’s do an X-Ray. I got to hotel but didn’t even get out of the taxi before they rang me back and the nurse said can you come back to the hospital.
“I went back and they were waiting at the door and she said, ‘your entire chest is a tumour we need to admit you right now’.”
Shannon and husband Richard, 31, a business development manager, wed on August 5 but she was not in any pain on the big day. Despite being told she had a frozen shoulder at A&E, Shannon asked for a blood test at her GP.
She said: “I did work the Wednesday and felt fine. I said to a colleague imagine if it was cancer it would just be my luck. I went out for dinner, got into bed at my hotel and the phone rang.”
Shannon received an injection at Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle to treat a suspected blood clot on September 11, but was urgently recalled after X-rays uncovered a huge mass in her chest.
She said: “I had to phone my manager and said you’ll have to check me out of hotel, and he came and sat with me. They never mentioned lymphoma or cancer. They just said there’s a mass there – a dense mass and we can’t see through it. We need to know what it is.
“When my mum had breast cancer she had lymphoedema so I thought it was that. The day after they a did biopsy said it’s a lymphoma and they must have thought I took news well.
“After my results they said I’d have to start chemo which is when I realised. It just didn’t click before then because I’d never heard of it.
“I’m a mum and thought my only option is get better and get better fast. Even when I laid down and had my final pet scan it was like, ‘I know I’m cancer free’.”
As a remission gift, dad Steve Blanks, 57, penned Shannon a book about her hair loss after daughter Ophelia, five, found it difficult to come to terms with her mum’s transformed appearance.
She said: “Her friend came over for a play date and they were trying on wigs. Her friend said, ‘I’m Ariel’. She got comfy with it. It was almost like, ‘If my friends are ok with it so am I’.”
The book ‘My Mum’s a Chameleon’ has been purchased by The Royal Wolverhampton and Shannon’s local Waterstones branch.