A former teacher whose stomach became so big students started 'rumours' she was pregnant was stunned to discover she had a giant tumour - and went on to nickname it 'SUBWAY' because it was a foot long.
Danielle Wright, 25, told how she first noticed a change in her bowel movements together with bloating after eating certain foods, lower back pain and fatigue, in September, 2020. She said she spent well over a year going back and forward to the doctors, who put her symptoms down to irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, food intolerances, her contraceptive pill and even stress.
But the former geography teacher said by March this year her bloating became permanent and she ballooned so massively that people thought she was expecting and kept asking 'when are you due?'
Danielle, from Salford, said it wasn't until a 'confused' doctor felt her stomach the following month and noticed her insides were out of place that propelled her into receiving a 'devastating' kidney cancer diagnosis. The waste and recycling officer had surgery last month to remove the 31cm by 29cm tumour that weighed a whopping six kilograms along with her left kidney and adrenal gland.
Photos captured by Danielle reveal her flat stomach in swimwear before it became 'rock solid' and expanded on her petite size 6 frame. She said students at the school where she was teaching at the time even created 'rumours' she was pregnant.
After her life-changing ordeal, Danielle now wants to raise awareness of kidney cancer's symptoms and the importance of returning to the doctors if health issues continue to persist.
She said: "We nicknamed my tumour Subway because it's a foot long. We just kept on calling it Subway because we didn't really want to say 'oh the cancer, oh the tumour' because it's a bit depressing to keep talking about.
"In a way when we joke about it, it makes it easier to handle - 'how's your Subway?' The tumour was 31 by 29cm and weighed about six kg. I bought a 28cm frying pan and put it against me and that's my whole width, that's my whole waist, which is crazy.
"It originated on my left kidney and pushed all my organs to the right, so he had to put a lot of my organs back into the right place and some are still gradually going back into the right place."
Danielle said students were the first to mistake her for being pregnant when she started teaching back in 2020. But she said she just 'laughed off' the comments, telling how she was eating a lot of fatty food at the time due to the stress of the job.
Danielle said: "When I ate food like croissants I was so bloated that the students created a rumour that I was pregnant. They were whispering saying 'yeah, she's definitely bigger today, her belly's rounder'. I had lower left back pain and just thought it was because I was at an office desk for quite a while.
"I'd often eat a meal and then need to go to the toilet straight away and if I didn't I'd be in agony, to the point where I'd have to go home from work. I was extremely fatigued. I was working 7am until 7pm some days and on a Sunday, so I only really had a Saturday off, so I was thinking it was the job as it was exhausting."
Danielle said that she's been anaemic since the age of 16, which she now understands to be a symptom of kidney cancer. She said: "It got to the point where my stomach was stuck out all the time. I went in the chippy once and ordered my food and the guy said 'congratulations, when's it due?'
"And that was before I ate the chippy. I used to go swimming every Monday and people started thinking I was pregnant there as well. I saw girls online normalising bloating and thought 'oh, that's just me' and started eating salads daily for work and dealt with it.
"It got to the point where I was at my sister's 30th in March and everyone was pointing at my belly as I had a crop top on and some high-waisted pants. I think it's only when other people started being shocked by it that I stopped saying 'oh, it's just normal'. When my stomach was at its biggest, in one picture I probably look like I'm about to give birth. Even in a bikini I couldn't look at it, it was horrible.
"Quite a lot of people told me I looked six months pregnant and the guy in the chippy who asked when I was expecting obviously thought I was quite far along. It was rock solid, which I didn't realise wasn't normal and feel a bit silly not knowing that. When you're going to the gym, swimming weekly, are vegetarian and mainly eating salads, you start to think, 'I shouldn't be that bloated'.
"Despite being really skinny and about eight stone, I couldn't see the flat of my stomach and on the top right there was a bit that was really round, and I didn't know that was my liver poking out. I'd look down at myself and it was very lob sided - I had a rib sticking out on the left side but it was stuck in on the right side, every thing was just really honkey donkey. I was really worried about it.
Danielle said she first visited the doctor in November, 2020 and persistently returned with the same issues. However, it was a visit in April this year, where a doctor felt her stomach for a second time, that proved decisive. She said: "The doctor felt my stomach and said 'I'm confused' and I said 'what do you mean?' and she said 'I don't get what that is there and why your ribs are there. I don't want to alarm you but this isn't correct or not what a stomach should feel like'.
"She said 'if you were 60, I'd think it's cancer, but because you're young, it's unlikely'. I kind of already knew what it was before they diagnosed me. I sort of processed it and just cried in my room on my own.
"It's good to have my family around me because my coping mechanism is humour. I try and just joke about it I guess. I am very lucky that it hasn't spread beyond my kidney. So I just keep saying that there's people out there that have chemotherapy for years and years, and I'm not going to have to have that. So it's just counting the positives really."
Danielle had surgery this month which has left her with a two ft long scar stretching from just under her breast all the way to her pubic bone. Following a few set backs after surgery, she's now on the road to recovery and is hoping she'll be well enough to attend her graduation ceremony on July 14th.
Danielle said: "In a way it's sort of ageism, they just looked and said 'she's young, skinny and healthy, she's not got cancer' and I think cancer doesn't have an age - you can have babies with cancer. I just feel like because I was young I wasn't taken seriously. Scans are the best for identifying this type of thing, so I'd always request a scan nowadays.
"I'd say if you have an issue and it's not resolved, for example, if you're anaemic and they give you something and your symptoms don't leave, keep going back until it is resolved.
Danielle is now fundraising for Kidney Cancer UK, a kidney cancer charity. She's set up a steps challenge as motivation to get moving post-surgery and said that reading the supportive comments she's received on her fundraiser encourages her to keep active - even if it's just venturing to the kitchen or garden. You can donate to Danielle's Just Giving page here.
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