An Essex woman believes an initially overlooked symptom was a warning of the impending cancer that she went on to suffer from.
When Jessica Hamersley first noticed a red spot on her left shin that continually came and went for a year, she attributed it to her eczema.
Despite it being hot and throbbing, she though it was just becoming irritated by her scented moisturiser and it would eventually go away.
Advert
The Brit's fiancé pushed her to get it checked out by health professionals, with worries that it could be related to the contraceptive pill, but it turned out to be much worse.
The 27-year-old tried a different pill but the rash persisted, with an X-ray in October last year revealing the bad news.
There was a huge mass on her chest, and following more biopsies in the following months, a keyhole operation took place to remove and test the mass.
Advert
In February 2024, she was diagnosed with stage 2A Hodgkin's lymphoma, and was told it had been growing for six months to a year beforehand.
The mass itself was over seven inches in size and had been putting pressure on her heart, even while fiancé William was proposing, and if she had left it longer, the strain on her heart would have formed lumps on her collarbones and caused her to be short of breath.
Luckily, after a tough course of chemotherapy, Jessica has been cancer-free since August this year, and has taken to TikTok to share her story, urging others with similar signs to get checked out.
Speaking about her experience, she admitted: "I thought maybe it's a flare up on my leg or did I catch myself when I was shaving? You never think cancer.
Advert
"A rash on my leg literally saved my life," Jessica stated.
Admittedly a healthy individual that doesn't smoke and barely drinks, Jessica bizarrely shared that she felt 'healthy' while the tumours were in her chest.
"I remember when I went to the X-ray room I said to the radiologist, this is really dramatic, I'm sorry for wasting your time," she explained, as she didn't take it that seriously.
Other symptoms can become apparent with a lymphoma, but the Brit was showing next to nothing at the time.
Advert
The rash on her leg was known as erythemsa nodosum, which is what causes fat tissue to be inflamed.
According to the NHS, it is a condition that causes patches of skin to look red or darker than your regular skin pigment, and though it can go away within weeks, it could be a sign of Crohn's disease.
On 22 August, it was confirmed that she was free of cancer, and is going to Disney World with her fiancé to celebrate, something they spoke about through chemotherapy as she called him her 'rock through it all'.
Jessica is set to return to her customer service job after building up her health and stamina, though she will need follow-up scans and blood tests every few months to make sure she stays cancer-free.
Joshua Nair