A sporty office worker who was struck down by nausea and exhaustion thought she had food poisoning when she lost two stone in a fortnight but discovered she had a rare cancer affecting just 345 people in the UK a year and had her left lung removed to save her life.
Keen hockey player and gym regular Karen Ruddock, 54, was the picture of health in March 2015 when her world came crashing down after a diagnosis of stage four thymoma – a cancer of the thymus gland behind the breastbone affecting less than one per cent of Brits each year, according to Cancer Research UK.
Given gruelling chemotherapy and radiotherapy, customer service assistant Karen, who lives in Walthamstow, east London, with her lecturer wife Heidrun Bien, 45, had her left lung removed in September 2021, after the cancer had “taken it over,” leaving it with just four per cent function.
