A Washington woman’s extreme potato chip addiction may have saved her life after doctors discovered she had tonsil cancer.
Every day for the last 20 years, Kristine Moore, of Everett, has eaten an entire bag of Ruffles potato chips during lunch.
“I've eaten Ruffles potato chips every day of my life for the past 20 years. It's a staple of my lunch,” she told the Everett Herald.
So, when a chip got stuck in her throat on February 28, Moore just assumed that she hadn’t chewed all the way.
“I must not have chewed it up enough, because Ruffles have ridges,” she explained.
It wasn’t until she felt sick the next morning that Moore finally asked her husband, Bob Metcalfe, to take a look at her throat.
“He said, ‘Boy oh boy, your tonsil is inflamed and it looks like it has sores on it,'” she said.
One visit to the Everett Clinic was all it took for Moore to start worrying, when her test for strep throat came back negative.
Immediately, the doctor took a biopsy from Moore’s throat and scheduled her for a CT scan while they waited for the results.
The biopsy confirmed the doctor’s worst fears: Moore had a form of throat cancer.
Until she was told of the quarter sized tumor on her tonsil, Moore had been a lifelong smoker; but the moment she was diagnosed with cancer, she quit cold turkey.
“My husband and daughter have been nagging at me,” she said. “And my mother, April 30 she would have been gone a year. She had quit smoking for 25 years and still came down with lung cancer.”
Because the cancer hasn’t spread, Moore’s prognosis is very good—all thanks to her Ruffles addiction!
“The doctor said that without that potato chip it (her cancer) wouldn't have even shown up for another year,” Metcalfe told the Everett Herald.
