Woman diagnosed with stage four cancer while pregnant fundraises for dream wedding
A Scottish woman who was receiving treatment for stage four ovarian cancer while pregnant is fundraising in the hopes of having her dream wedding.
Dundee woman Shannon Lamb first had problems in October 2020 when she felt run down and woke up sweating.
She initially assumed it was covid, but when she spotted a lump on her stomach she went to the doctor's and was told it was actually cancer.
Shannon had a tumour the size of a grapefruit removed along with her left ovary and fallopian tube and was told she didn't need any further treatment at that stage.
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In 2021 she started dating Mark Taylor and he proposed after just four months together, but the couple suffered the tragedy of a miscarriage in October 2021.
A few months later in March 2022, Shannon began to feel constantly tired and short of breath, even when sat down doing nothing, and an X-ray revealed tumours in her lungs.
Only a few days later she also found out that she was pregnant, and had surgery while 16 weeks pregnant.
Shannon turned down any morphine after having a third of her lung removed in order to protect the baby, but further tests revealed her cancer was now stage 4 and had spread to her spine and pelvic bone - leaving the expectant mother having to undergo chemotherapy while pregnant.
She gave birth to a son in November 2022 and now her goal is to have her dream wedding with Mark, but the couple's funds have been depleted by multiple 1,000-mile round trips to Hammersmith Hospital in London.
The couple have now set up a fundraising page, which you can donate to here, in the hopes of raising £5,000 for a dream wedding.
Mark said Shannon was 'the bravest, most beautiful woman and I can't wait to marry her' and that his fiancé 'deserves the world'.
Shannon said she was 'devastated' at her initial diagnosis but 'dropped to the floor crying with happiness' after doctors told her it was stage 1A.
She said she was 'scared and in shock' when she got the later news of her more dangerous cancer diagnosis and 'didn't want to believe it'.
Her pregnancy came as a surprise after that and she was worried about undergoing cancer treatment while pregnant.
She said: "I was so scared of what impact my cancer treatment would have on my baby as I didn’t want to lose him or any harm to come to him.
"I had one round of chemo pregnant. It was five days inpatient, it was really bad, and then I came home."
"I couldn't move properly, I couldn't breathe properly. It was just really bad. After my first round, I went for my baby scan at 32 weeks and they told me his stomach had stopped growing and that he'd pass away if I didn't deliver there and then.
"I was really panicking because they said I was going in for my C-section that afternoon. I was just like, 'Oh my god, what's going on?'."
Fortunately, a successful C-section resulted in the birth of the couple's son Hunter, but four days later she was back in chemotherapy.
The cancer has caused nerve damage which means she can't feel her toes or her feet meaning she has to walk with a stick but Shannon has said she intends to make it down the aisle without it.
Joe Harker