How time-off work during COVID helped one woman identify her lung cancer

When you work in early years and pre-school education, it’s notoriously difficult to be comfortable whilst working at low heights with young children. Unsurprisingly, when Clair, 44, started experiencing increasingly severe back pain over 18 months, starting in the summer of 2020, her colleagues, and later her GP, all put it down to the job.?

It was COVID-19 that finally saved Clair’s life.??

Clair’s back pain had her in and out of the GP and physical therapists’ offices in the months leading up to her stage 4, ALK-positive lung cancer diagnosis in March 2022. The turning point began when Clair caught COVID in January 2022 and spent 10 days in bed. After a break from working in awkward positions and at low heights, Clair expected her back pain to improve or at least not worsen. But that didn’t happen.

As she was recovering from COVID, Clair explains, “I noticed lumps on my spine and I found I couldn’t breathe. Even going up and down the stairs was challenging.” Thankfully, her GP was “brilliant” and sent her for urgent scans. “Within a day, my GP called to tell me that there was shadowing on my left lung, and that I had three broken vertebrates in my spine,” Clair says.

The next two weeks were a blur for Clair, filled with a battery of hospital appointments and examinations. While she was barely able to walk and was in a huge amount of pain, Clair underwent a biopsy of her lung and an MRI of the brain to confirm the cancer had not spread to her brain, which can happen with ALK+ lung cancers. The biopsy enabled doctors to check if Clair had any biomarkers, which was likely given her non-smoking status. Clair was put on an intensive treatment of radiotherapy to her spine to help alleviate the pain caused from the secondary lung cancer in the spine. Paradoxically, Clair found lying on a hard plastic radiotherapy bed without moving for 20 minutes the most pain she’d ever experienced.?

"The biopsy results came back in early March, and I was told I was lucky as I had a non-hereditary mutation of the ALK (anaplastic lymphoma kinase) gene. Only 5% of all non-small cell lung cancers have this gene. The good news is that ALK+ lung cancer can be treated with a targeted therapy drug. This was a game changer for me, even though there were side effects, it would help to inhibit my cancer and shrink it."?

One year on from diagnosis

Now just about one year since diagnosis, Clair - a mother to three children aged 16, 14 and 9 - is in a much better place. She says, "My family and friends have been fantastic, and I no longer feel that my lung cancer is a death sentence. I know that, thanks to ongoing medical research, there are amazing new treatments that will help me be able to live with this in future too."?

Clair adds, "Back in February, having cancer was all I thought about. I was convinced that I would be dead by the end of the year. I stopped making plans as I thought there was little point. Over time, I have learned to embrace life."

It is so important to get more funding for those with ALK-positive cancer so that we can continue to live for as long as possible and one day help turn ALK+ lung cancer into a chronic illness.

Clair does acknowledge that her lung cancer diagnosis is life changing. She says, "Cancer has been the most shocking thing to happen to me, especially since I am a non-smoker. However, I have met so many empowering people – including others living with incurable lung cancer like me – who have given me hope that I can be treated and live with cancer."?

Clair also believes it’s time to educate both the public but the medical community that anyone can get lung cancer. Delays in diagnosis can happen when you’re experiencing lung cancer symptoms and you don’t smoke, are young and basically don’t fit the “typical lung cancer” profile.??

Most of all, Clair is thankful for medical research, adding: “With vital ongoing research, there will be more medications in the future. Lung cancer is not as scary as it used to be. There is an urgency, however, as at present, we will run out of treatment lines. It is so important to get more funding for those with ALK+ cancer so that we can continue to live for as long as possible and one day help turn ALK+ lung cancer into a chronic illness."

To read Clair’s full story and other inspiring ALK-positive stories visit our website.?