A woman who gained nearly 85 pounds out of nowhere says she was called “fat and lazy” for several months before doctors finally discovered she had thyroid cancer.
27-year-old Bryony Bateman had weighed a healthy 140 pounds for as long as she could remember; then one day, she ballooned to a size 18.
Although she tried talking with her doctor about the alarming weight gain, Bateman was simply told to stop eating junk food and exercise more often.
For months, Bateman exercised religiously and counted calories like never before, but her weight continued skyrocketing.
“I didn't know what was going on. I kept gaining weight but I wasn't eating any more than I was a few months ago - it just kept on going up and up and up,” she told The Daily Mail. “I really wasn't feeling myself. For months, my doctor had been telling me I was fat, lazy and eating junk.”
It wasn’t until a banana-shaped lump appeared on the side of her neck three months later that Bateman’s doctors finally started taking her weight gain seriously.
Several tests soon revealed that the growth was a cancerous tumor pressing on Bateman’s thyroid, which stopped her body from controlling her metabolism.
“But if I hadn't got the courage up to go and see a doctor again, who know's what could have happened?” she said.
Fortunately, surgeons were able to remove the cancerous tumor and its surrounding lymph nodes following the shocking diagnosis.
Shortly after being deemed cancer-free in March 2013, Bateman married her longtime boyfriend.
Although medical experts told Bateman she probably wouldn’t be able to conceive after she underwent radioactive iodine therapy to kill off any remaining thyroid cells, she became pregnant six months later.
Bateman and her husband are now the proud (and healthy!) parents of a 1-year-old baby girl named Eva.
