I assumed I’d just pulled a muscle in my neck – but it actually turned out to be stage four cancer

A fitness instructor who assumed she had pulled a muscle in her neck actually had stage four cancer.

Lily Venus, then 24 years old, visited her GP in November 2021 after a painful lump near her collarbone made it difficult for her to teach Zoom practice classes.

Two weeks later, she was diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin lymphoma, a form of blood cancer, and was told she had tumors on both sides of her neck, as well as on her chest and lungs.

Miss Venus, from Winchester in Hampshire, underwent 12 grueling rounds of chemotherapy at University Hospital Southampton and was told she could lose her fertility.

But the now 26-year-old has been in remission for a year, has returned to fitness classes and has retained her fertility.

In September 2021, as Miss Venus taught classes via Zoom six times a week, she began to feel light-headed.

She was also “incredibly tired” and napped at least once a day.

Miss Venus and her eight-year-old partner Ryan Lynch, a 36-year-old gardening business owner, went to Petersfield for a short break in November 2021 before driving to York to pick up a new puppy.

“During the ride I had a weird feeling in my neck,” she said. “It felt like I had slept strangely.”

Miss Venus’s symptoms persisted for the next week, but she attributed them to fatigue from exercise and having a new puppy to care for.

“At the end of that week I developed a lump just above my collarbone,” she said.

“The discomfort prevented me from learning the upper body parts of my exercise classes, so I booked a doctor’s appointment.”

Miss Venus’s doctor at St Clements Surgery, Winchester, told her to go to the emergency room – which she said was an ‘overreaction’ – but on November 18, 2021, she received the devastating news that she had cancer.

Hodgkin lymphoma starts in the white blood cells.

It is named after Thomas Hodgkin, an English physician who first discovered the disease in 1832.

It affects about 2,000 people each year in the UK and 8,500 a year in the US.

Miss Venus started the first of a six-month course of chemotherapy just before Christmas that year and was treated at Southampton University Hospital.

Doctors told Miss Venus that her cancer responded well to the chemo and she was able to have a lower dose during her last eight sessions. She finished chemotherapy on May 20 and is now in remission.

Before her treatment began, doctors told her there was a ‘small’ risk of losing her fertility and offered her IVF.

But this would have delayed her chemotherapy by six months.

“It was very difficult for me to make this decision,” she said. “I talked to Ryan about it and he said, ‘Without you there’s no baby. It’s important we get you well as soon as possible.’

“I’m so thankful he saw it that way because my cancer was already stage four and Hodgkin lymphoma is growing fast. Who knows where I would be today if I hadn’t started chemotherapy right away.’

Miss Venus kept her fertility but says she now has many new allergies and “my heart and other organs will forever be weaker than they ever were.”

She said she was “so thankful” to her doctors that they quickly got it under control.

“I feel like catching my cancer at the stage it was at, this is one of the reasons I was able to achieve remission,” she said.

Miss Venus said, ‘I most look forward to life, every little bit of it and everything in between.

“I always dreamed of being a mother, and not knowing if I could achieve that title in my lifetime has only made me want it more.

“During my treatment I have had to accept changes such as losing my hair, not being able to appear to people as I was and not being able to live as I was.

“After my treatment I had to accept that I will never have that year again.

She added, “I’m so grateful to be able to move forward and higher with a new appreciation for how wonderful life is.”