A woman from Luckington is determined to defy her stage four thyroid cancer and cycle 2000km to Copenhagen with her childhood sweetheart to raise awareness of the deadly disease.

After suffering diarrhoea, sickness, tiredness and enlarged lymph nodes for two years, Emmy Collett, 30, of Bridges Court was told she had a rare and terminal form of thyroid cancer in March.

The primary school teacher said: “My symptoms first started about two years ago so I went to the doctors with my problems and I was told I probably had IBS so I ignored it for some time.”

Throughout the London Marathon in 2015, Miss Collett struggled with sickness and a few weeks later also had pains in her liver, heavy periods and tiredness which doctors believed was due to norovirus.

During her illness, she also rekindled her romance with old flame Jake Coates, now a doctor working in Australia, and it was his medical expertise which finally won her the diagnosis.

She said: “Around Christmas I saw Jake and he said I should go back to the doctors and I didn’t, using him as a doctor to talk to and get some advice.

“I said to Jake that my neck was hurting and asked him to give me a massage because I thought I had these muscle knots and he straight away knew they were my lymph nodes and was quite concerned.

“When he went home, I was still putting going to the doctors off because of my bad experiences but Jake booked me in for a private appointment from Australia and I felt bad and made an appointment with my GP.”

After visiting the same doctor that diagnosed her with IBS, Miss Collett was rushed to hospital for a biopsy and was told it was likely to be medullary thyroid cancer, something which only 300 people have been diagnosed with in the UK over the last 12 years. 

She added: “Jake already knew I think, whereas I was thinking everything was normal. In a way, he mentally prepared me for what was to come. It was quite good having someone like him as I could ask questions and get answers, rather than googling my symptoms.

“I thought I could just get it cut out. I was still quite upbeat about it.”

A week later and the night before flying out for their dream holiday where her partner was going to propose, Miss Collett suffered chest pains and she was rushed into A&E in the early hours of the morning.

Miss Collett said: “They were going to send me home but Jake said we weren’t going anywhere until I had a CT scan. We were there for 12 hours.”

The scan revealed that she had lesions in her lungs and liver and also had a fractured rib. A few days later, after the couple had a mini holiday in the UK, the hospital had a meeting.

“It was the worst day and the best day because I finally knew what was wrong. I could ask everything and she was very blunt with me”, Miss Collett said.

“It was stage four and my prognosis was 20 per cent to make five years. The word incurable was a shock because in my head I could get rid of it. It changed what we imagined our lives to be.

“They said I had the cancer for two years at least and the key thing for me as I have lived it with it for so long is now about raising awareness. If I had known that my lymph nodes were not muscle knots this could have been different.”

Undeterred by her prognosis Miss Collett and her fiancée Jake Coates will cycle on a tandem from London, stopping off at Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Hamburg and finally Copenhagen to raise money for the Royal Marsden Hospital where she is being treated.

Miss Collett said: "The staff at the Royal Marsden Hospital have been so incredible and I am treated like royalty when I am there and it is really important to me that I can use my situation to support the hospital in raising awareness.

“We will be cycling over three weeks from London to Copenhagen via Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Hamburg on Tara the tandem which is named after the nurse who looks after me at the Royal Marsden.

“We haven’t set an end date as we are not putting too much pressure on it and will take each day as it comes.

“Belgian and Dutch press picked the story up and we have had thousands of messages asking if they can help us out or offering us places to stay and the support is amazing.

"Both our families have also been so supportive in everything they have done and that is really important to me and we can't thank them enough."

For more information about Emmy Collett or to donate visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ejtandemonium and http://ejtandemonium.com.