A keen singer who feared she would never be able to hold a note again after her neck swelled “like a frog when they puff out their neck” and underwent surgery to remove thyroid cancer now says she can “sing like a bird” after enjoying a remarkable recovery. Dinny Hinds, 76, had to retire early from her job as a nurse when thyroid cancer in her throat meant she could no longer shout for help on the wards.
A keen singer, Dinny said it was frustrating to not be able to sing along at church and communicated with her family through written notes for six months while she recovered from surgery, which saw surgeons cut her from “one ear to the next so they could get in and remove the lumps”. After having a balloon fitted into her vocal cord, the mum-of-two regained her voice and in September 2019, she took part in her first 5K run “to say thank you” to the people who had helped her – undertaking another in June this year.
With her husband, Leslie, 75, a retired post office worker, since being diagnosed with prostate cancer, Dinny is a regular participant in Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life and she is often accompanied by her children to raise funds and awareness. Dinny, who lives in Birmingham and is mother to her daughter Allison, 44, and 37-year-old son Adrian, said: “Discovering a lump on my tongue marked the start of a long process.
