'My symptoms engulfed me': one woman's struggle with thyroid cancer

Niamh O'Donoghue wasn't concerned when she found a small lump on her neck — she was a young, healthy woman. But then her body went rogue  

Niamh O'Donoghue, journalist and social media editor. Photographs: Moya Nolan

When I first found a lump on my neck — slightly off to the right of my thyroid gland — it was unsuspecting. Small in size, to begin with, the lump accompanied a general feeling of unwellness and fatigue that lasted for the entirety of winter.

At one point I was overcome by a slew of drenching night sweats and my voice developed a slight hoarseness to it. The lump had also levelled up in size from pea-shaped to gob-stopper and the fatigue I felt made a dilemma out of ordinarily simple, painless tasks. My symptoms were ubiquitous and heterogeneous (after all, I was a young and healthy 22-year-old), so making a diagnosis became murky and problematic.