Loose Women star Kaye Adams has revealed she was left feeling "really nervous" ahead of surgery after fearing she had throat cancer. The 63-year-old broadcaster opened up about the ordeal on the latest episode of her How To Be 60 podcast, explaining that she had undergone a hemithyroidectomy — an operation to remove one half of the thyroid gland so it can be examined for abnormalities.
A scan led to surgery
Adams said doctors had "kept tabs" on her following a scan last year, and at a recent appointment medics advised that it would be best to have the growth removed. She first sought medical advice after feeling what seemed to be a lump in her neck, following an interview with Mark Steel, who had shared his own experience with throat cancer.
"And as is typical, once you've done that kind of interview you go away and you start prodding about," she explained. After turning to a friend who is a nurse for advice, she recalled: "[I was] fully expecting her to tell me to not be stupid but she said, 'I think you should get that checked'."
"This was about 18 months ago, so you go to the GP, they check it out, then you end up in the hospital, they did a scan, all the while thinking I was overreacting," she added.
Waiting for results
Adams said doctors took a biopsy and admitted they did not know what was in the growth. "I said 'just leave it' because I couldn't face it," she said. Fearing cancer, she was particularly worried about the risk to her voice box. "They always give you the risks don't they with these procedures, so apart from the fact that you might have cancer, which is obviously not good, the risk is to your voice box, so I was really nervous about that, which is I think probably why I delayed it for so long."
She recalled being told: "It will be about three weeks before you get the results" and asking: "Oh unless it's something really terrible?" — to which the doctor replied: "Yes, you'll be told right away." Adams then received a call just a few days later and, fearing the worst, did not answer until the third call.
Benign growth and relief
When she finally picked up, she was told the growth was benign. "I was jumping up and down like a kid at Christmas who'd just got given six ponies and a bike. What a relief," she told listeners.
Adams added that she had reached a point where she feared nothing good was going to happen again following what she described as "a hellish year", seemingly in reference to bullying allegations made against her, which she denied. "You get yourself into a headspace that nothing is ever going to be good again. That everything is going to be bad," she admitted. "Last year, with my troubles, as we call them. I just lost my appetite. I just didn't want to eat anything. And the only thing that I wanted to eat was mango."
