Woman mistook signs of cancer for diet side effects

Camilla Chapman is urging people not to ignore symptoms

- REBECCA WHITTAKER

A woman has been given months to live after she first mistook her difficulty swallowing for a side effect of a weight loss diet.

Camilla Chapman was diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer almost a year after she first developed symptoms of the disease.

Ms Chapman, 40, from Chichester, West Sussex, received the devastating news in February that her cancer had spread to her lungs, liver and lymph nodes and told it was inoperable.

“I was told there was nothing they can do; they can’t operate, and it is not curable. I was only offered palliative chemotherapy,” she told The Independent.

The nursery business owner said the diagnosis has left her with “no hope”, but she is urging others not to ignore seemingly minor ailments.

In March last year Ms Chapman noticed she was struggling to swallow her food – a tell-tale sign of stomach cancer – but she assumed it was a side effect of her new diet.

“I was on a low-calorie diet and a lot of the diet was liquid based, but one of the solid foods you could make were pancakes and quite often they would get stuck in my throat. I would need to drink water with them,” Ms Chapman said.

“I ignored it, thinking it was just because I hadn’t been eating properly and maybe I had just got lazy at chewing. I thought my body was just used to swallowing liquid and not food,” she added.