Linda’s lung health check story

Linda knows how devastating lung cancer can be. She lost her husband, David, to the disease just six months after he was diagnosed. So when she was invited to attend our lung health check in Nottingham, she had no hesitation to go.

“I was invited to Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation’s lung health check back in 2017. I had no reservations about going. I always go to smear tests and mammograms. It’s so important.

At the appointment, I was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) and referred for a CT scan at the mobile unit in the GP surgery car park.

The scan discovered two small nodules inside my right lung. I was referred to a specialist that same week. The good news was they believed the nodules weren’t cancerous. However, they recommended keeping an eye on them for any signs of growth.

It was quite a frightening time. I knew there was ‘something’ there which could potentially become very serious so it was reassuring to have regular scans.

I had follow up scans every three months. Six months on and two additional scans later, everything was still fine. At that point, I relaxed a little. I pretty much thought I was out of the woods. That turned out not to be the case as at my third scan, nine months after my original lung health check appointment, the nodules had grown. They biopsied them and confirmed they were in fact cancerous.

I was shocked because even though the nodules had grown and were malignant, I still had absolutely no symptoms. There was no warning light to suggest anything was wrong so which this intervention, chances are I would have carried on completely unaware that I had cancer.

That is why these lung health checks are so important. My husband, David, died of lung cancer and it was so fast. He passed within six months of his diagnosis. However, thanks to the lung health check, my story is very different. It is still an extremely frightening thing to have to go through but better that than it being too late to do anything about it.

I can’t express how grateful I am. If I hadn’t gone for that test, I don’t know how far the cancer would have spread before I would have found out. It saved my life.”

Linda was diagnosed through our lung health check in Nottingham. She is one of 11 people to be diagnosed as a result of the pilot, which saw a 64% of those diagnosed get caught early and offered curative-intent treatment. She is one of two people who were diagnosed at a follow up scan.