Mom, 34, shares warning after cough she blamed on Covid turned out to be cancer
A mother who initially thought her persistent cough was a lingering symptom of Covid-19 has issued a warning after she was diagnosed with a rare chest cancer.
Michaela Riley, a teacher from Lewisham, south London, was 34 when she contracted coronavirus in February 2021. However, when her symptoms failed to clear after nearly three weeks, the mother-of-two sought urgent medical advice on the recommendation of her mother.
“I’d had Covid, but there was this lingering cough that wasn’t going,” Michaela explained. “Every time I laid on my back I felt like I was drowning. Like my lung was filling up with water.”
Following an extensive series of scans and tests—including an X-ray, ECG, CT scan, MRI, biopsy, and PET scan—doctors discovered a 6.4cm mass in her chest. She was diagnosed with stage three thymoma, an uncommon form of cancer affecting the thymus gland.
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Around 400-600 people are diagnosed with thymus gland cancer across the US each year, with thymomas accounting for the vast majority of cases.
The diagnosis proved emotionally overwhelming for the young family, particularly when navigating the immediate realities of hospital treatment alongside parenting her then-eight-year-old son.
“It really hit me when I got home after numerous investigative appointments at the hospital,” she recalled. “I’d just had a PET scan, they suggest that you’re not to be around children for a while after.
“My son had just come from school. He came through the door excitedly and ran towards me. My mum screamed out, ‘No! You can’t hug mummy yet’. For the first time I realised there may be a point where my son would never hug me again.”
Michaela was referred to Guy’s Hospital in London, where she had previously received treatment for meningitis as an 11-year-old. Before embarking on aggressive therapy, she was offered fertility preservation at Guy’s Assisted Conception Unit.
She then endured 21 rounds of chemotherapy to shrink the tumour before undergoing an intricate five-hour operation.
“Chemo is very tough. You walk in there ready to go and you are absolutely fine, but once treatment starts to take affect you can barely walk out,” she said. “My rounds were eight hours long, so I was often the first in and the last out. I was a baby by the end of it.
“My dad would always come upstairs, pick me up and carry me to the car. You go from being fiercely independent to needing your parents, or whoever is there, to care for you. I needed someone to parent me and parent my child. Mentally that was a struggle.”
In September 2021, consultant thoracic surgeon Professor Andrea Bille led a specialist surgical team through a delicate five-hour procedure to excise the mass and part of Michaela's thyroid gland.
The surgery carried immense risk due to the tumour’s proximity to vital organs and its encroachment into the superior vena cava—the major vessel carrying deoxygenated blood to the heart. Surgeons successfully removed the tumour, reconstructed the vein, and repaired part of the pericardium, the protective sac surrounding the heart.
“On average a thoracic surgeon may encounter a case like this once a year or even less,” Professor Bille noted. “Despite being quite rare, here at Guy’s, we do probably one a month, because we set up this service. Michaela has made a full recovery and now she’s five years cancer free.”
Now five years in remission, Michaela undergoes annual check-ups and has since welcomed a daughter, who is now almost two, without needing fertility intervention.
Marking 10 years of the Cancer Centre at Guy’s Hospital, Michaela expressed deep gratitude for the team that saved her life: “From beginning to end there was no stone unturned... Having cancer and surviving it has given me the chance to start again.”
Phoebe Tonks