Florida news reporter Victoria Price is grateful after a viewer alerted her to a lump on her neck, which turned out to be cancer.
Price, who works at WFLA News in Tampa Bay, shared the story on her social media on Thursday. She said that while covering the coronavirus daily at her job, she didn’t prioritize her own health until a viewer emailed her about the lump on her neck.
“As a journalist, it’s been full throttle since the pandemic began,” Price wrote. “Never-ending shifts in a never-ending news cycle. Adjusting to remote workflows and in my case, taking on a new investigative role. We were covering the most important health story in a century, but my own health was the farthest thing from my mind.”
“Until a viewer emailed me last month,” she continued. “She saw a lump on my neck. Said it reminded her of her own. Hers was cancer. Turns out, mine is too.”
Price said she would be undergoing surgery on Monday to remove the tumor, her thyroid and nearby lymph nodes. She is hopeful that it will be the only procedure she needs.
“Had I never received that email, I never would have called my doctor,” she wrote. “The cancer would have continued to spread. It’s a scary and humbling thought. I will forever be grateful to the woman who went out of her way to email me, a total stranger. She had zero obligation to, but she did anyway.”
Price also shared the email the viewer wrote, which read, “Hi, just saw your news report. What concerned me is the lump on your neck. Please have your thyroid checked. Reminds me of my neck. Mine turned out to be cancer. Take care of yourself.”
Back in 2015, Flip or Flop star Tarek El Moussa also shared that his thyroid cancer was discovered by a nurse who wrote to him after noticing a lump on his neck while watching his HGTV show. He later met the fan, Ryan Read, in person on an episode of The Doctors.
“We actually ended up spending the day with her,” he told The Insider. “It was just such an amazing experience to meet this person, because she stepped up and did what others probably wouldn’t have done.”
“I probably would’ve never known that I had cancer,” he continued. “And by the time that I would’ve found out, it probably would’ve been in a much further stage.”
