A mum of two young children said doctors fobbed her off as anxious for a decade before a change in her appearance led her to demand answers – and she was given a devastating diagnosis
A mum said doctors dismissed her symptoms as anxiety for 10 years before she received a devastating diagnosis.
Tameika McBride said she started visiting doctors with minor symptoms back in 2015 but was constantly told nothing was wrong with her after her blood work came back all-clear. Despite this, the mum-of-two knew something was wrong but it wasn’t until she noticed a large swelling in her neck, a few weeks after giving birth to her son, that she demanded answers.
To Tameika’s horror she was given a devastating diagnosis just a day after being assured there was likely nothing wrong with her.
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The mum, of two young children, went in for an ultrasound and was told she had cancer. Tameika, 30, said: “I was devastated and thought it was a death sentence. With two young children, aged four and two, I went into panic mode. It was traumatising I was having a meltdown and couldn’t stop crying.”
Tameika, from Adelaide, Australia, had known something wasn’t quite right with her health for years and, in hindsight, could see a change in her appearance with pictures showing the lump steadily growing over time.
She said: “I would go to my doctor about my symptoms and was told it was anxiety, and that my bloods were fine. But [the symptoms] didn’t cripple me, and I was happy overall, so I kind of accepted that how I was feeling was normal.”
During her pregnancy in 2019, doctors found Tameika had an underactive thyroid, and she was given medication and told it can happen when pregnant. When she came off the meds, she “stacked on weight” and looked “puffy and swollen” but was again assured her blood work had come back normal.
In August 2023, six weeks after she had welcomed her son, Tameika noticed her thyroid was visibly enlarged for the first time. She said: “I had a tender, sore thyroid on the left side that I could literally see in the mirror.
“I went to the doctor, who sent me to the ER. I thought it could be postpartum thyroiditis, but my bloods were fine. Scans showed ‘something’, but there was not enough information. They told me to get another scan, but no one followed up. As a tired, breastfeeding mum-of-two, I left it, and the swelling went away.”
But in November 2024, Tameika found a swollen lymph node on the left side of her neck, causing her to worry once more. Her doctor thought it was innocent and told her to return if the issue persisted, so when it was still there two months later, she went back.
Tameika said: “My doctor said, ‘I’m sure it’s nothing, but we’ll check to be sure,’ and I had an ultrasound. The very next day, I was told it was cancer. It was frustrating for years, I had questioned my symptoms and was always told it was anxiety. To finally be told it was cancer was overwhelming and heartbreaking.”
The terrified mum had a CT scan and biopsy, which confirmed the diagnosis of thyroid cancer, and she was booked in for a thyroidectomy – a procedure to remove all or part of the thyroid gland – and a left modified radical neck dissection – a procedure to remove cancerous lymph nodes – in April.
She said: “They removed 34 lymph nodes, and 12 came back as cancerous. Once again, hearing the bad news crushed us.”
Doctors also found Tameika had Hashimoto’s disease – an autoimmune condition where the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys the thyroid gland, preventing it from producing enough hormones. The same test revealed her cancer to be a rare and aggressive variant, and it had spread further than they had anticipated.
In June, Tameika underwent radioactive iodine (RAI) treatment to destroy thyroid cells and had to isolate in the hospital away from her family for 24 hours. She said: “My children are a little too young. My daughter, who is four, knows I’m sick and that I have cancer, but she doesn’t know the extent, and my son, who is two, doesn’t understand at all.”
Since her surgery, scans have found two remaining cancerous lymph nodes, and Tameika is continuing RAI treatment to try and kill them. She is currently also undergoing high-dose Vitamin C infusions, recommended by an integrative medicine doctor, which aren’t covered by her insurance and cost £150 per week.
Tameika has started an online fundraiser to help with the crippling costs, which has reached just shy of £3,500.