Mom of 3 Says 'Pulled Muscle' Was First Sign of Stage 4 Melanoma, Adds She Never Had a 'Dodgy Mole' or Lesion on Her Skin

Claire Turner, 43, said she didn't have changed moles or skin lesions — a rarity that occurs in about 3% of melanoma cases

• Claire Turner 43, thought she'd pulled a muscle while handing her daughter something to eat — but when the pain continued, she sought medical care

• She was initially told it was a torn ligament, but she persisted in seeing doctors — and discovered the swelling was due to a tumor and stage 4 melanoma

• Turner said she never had any lesions or moles on her skin — which happens in about 3% of melanoma cases — and that doctors have given her a "50/50 chance" to survive

A mom of 3 thought she had pulled a muscle in her shoulder — but the pain and swelling turned out to be a sign of stage 4 melanoma.

In October 2023, Claire Turner, 43, was riding in the front passenger seat, as her husband, Mark, was driving the family to a weekend vacation. She reached back to hand her daughter some breakfast — a croissant, banana and bottle of water — and “I felt like I pulled a muscle,” Turner told Kennedy News and Media via The Daily Mail.

“I thought ‘that's painful' but then I carried on with the day,” she said. “It was pretty painful carrying a bag and that night it was quite painful to lean back on it.”

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When the family returned to their home in the English town of Didcot, South Oxfordshire, Turner sought medical care for her still-painful shoulder — and was told she had a torn ligament.

“They gave me painkillers and told me to keep it strapped up and rest it for a couple of weeks and that it should settle down—and it did,” she said. But a few weeks later, her shoulder began to swell. Her doctors told her that “shoulder injuries can take a while to heal," but she decided to seek a second opinion—and was referred to an orthopedic consultant.

“By this point it was quite apparent and it was quite a substantial swelling on my shoulder. I couldn't carry a bag or wear a bra,” she said, who underwent an MRI and was referred to a cancer clinic — and spent last Christmas awaiting the results of her tests.

“I went on a spiral over Christmas. It was awful, and I was expecting the worst. It's the lowest I've felt in the whole journey,” she told the outlet.

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The diagnosis, she says, was stage 4 melanoma — but she’d never had a “dodgy mole," she shares. “It starts with a skin lesion, you look at it and ignore it, that's what I thought skin cancer was.”

But, Turner said “there was no primary [site where the cancer started] on my skin,” and added that even though there was no visible site on her skin, “the cancer cells got so deep that they travelled round for months or even years and created other tumors."

According to the National Library of Medicine, "approximately 3.2% of all melanomas present in distant sites with no known primary site."

And while she didn't have a visible mole, Turner said, “I did use sun beds and I've been burned in the sun striving for a tan.”

Since her diagnosis last Christmas, tumors have been discovered elsewhere around her shoulder, as well as in her liver and in the muscles around her buttocks and legs.

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Turner underwent immunotherapy treatment — which the Cleveland Clinic explains “may help some people with cancer to live longer” because the treatment “uses your body’s immune system to find and destroy cancerous cells.”

Unfortunately, Turner had to stop when she developed complications with inflammation.

“My nurse said to me that 10 years ago, with my diagnosis, I would be given six to seven months to live. That was quite shocking,” said Turner.

Her prognosis, while better than a decade ago, is still sobering: “The doctor said I had a 50/50 chance of coming out of the other side of this.”