'Your heart sinks and you think... can anything be done?'

A woman has spoken out about her ‘heart sinking’ after revealing her unsuccessful cancer treatment just days before her 60th birthday.

Jane Coleman had experienced mostly ‘symptomless’ cancer signs before visiting her doctor. But he revealed her worst fears when announcing she had renal cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes in March 2022.

Jane, from Warrington, said it had been the ‘scariest’ weeks of her life when he confirmed she had a seven centimetre tumour on her kidney and didn’t know how to tell her family.

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“I was so worried about telling my family - including my husband and elderly parents. I didn’t know if it was terminal and it was the scariest period of my life going through all the tests to learn where the cancer had spread,” Jane said.

She had surgery with surgeon Mr Gulamhusein to remove her kidney, adrenal gland and lymph nodes and then had a clear scan. She was unable to have preventative chemotherapy as her cancer was resistant to it.

During her third scan, in December 2022, Jane discovered the cancer had returned - in the lymph nodes between her main blood vessels which made it difficult to treat.

Jane then went on to receive Sabre radiotherapy in January 2023 before being told days before celebrating her 60th birthday that again the treatment had also been unsuccessful.

She said: “It was awful. We found out that all the radiotherapy I’d done had not helped, in fact, the implant had gotten even bigger. Your heart sinks and you think... can anything be done?

“I was so upset to announce it just before my birthday - especially when your whole family is rooting for you. It’s hard to go back and say it’s not good