Newport woman’s Butlin’s weekend revealed kidney cancer | UK News

When Charlotte Morjaria headed for a weekend at Butlin’s with her two best friends, she had no idea it would save her life.

On the last day of their girls’ trip in June, the group befriended a stag party and were playing games, running around outside their accommodation and “being silly”.

“Probably a tad too much drinking, albeit we were having a fantastic time before disaster struck – or you could call it a miracle,” Charlotte, 31, said.

When one of the men scooped her up over his shoulder during a game of tag, she heard something “go pop” but put it out of her mind and carried on enjoying her evening.

When she was still in pain after returning home to Newport from the holiday park in Minehead, Somerset, she went to A&E thinking she had broken a rib.

But a CT scan done to check for any internal damage revealed a “sizeable” cancerous tumour on her kidney that she had no idea even existed.

“In that moment, it was probably the most scared I’ve ever been in my life,” she said.

Charlotte sat in the hospital A&E waiting room for 22 hours and nearly left several times.

“I’ve just come back from Butlin’s, I’m absolutely done in, I don’t want to be sat in a waiting room alone, falling in and out of consciousness,” she recalled.

“I’m sat there with what I suspect is a bruised rib… I felt like a bit of a fraud.”

Then, “out of nowhere” her mum, followed by one of her friends, arrived to keep her company and persuaded her to stay.

When she was seen, doctors ordered the scan and Charlotte was told her rib was OK but said the medics around her did not have “the faces of people who are just going to say you’re fine”.

“They said they’d found a sizeable mass on my left kidney.”

“Still slightly hungover and in a daze”, she was told the 7cm (2.5in) tumour was being treated as cancer and was sent straight from The Grange Hospital to nearby Royal Gwent Hospital in her hometown.

Charlotte said dozens of questions “flood your brain” including how a tumour this size was missed.

“The conversation was a strange one, because I thought I was fine. There really weren’t very big tell-tale signs.”

She explained there were a lot of factors which hid her symptoms of weight loss, chronic fatigue and back pain, and she enjoyed an active lifestyle, going to dance classes and swimming regularly.

Having previously struggled with disordered eating, she had been taking the weight loss medication Mounjaro in 2024, but stopped when it appeared to be making her unwell.

She also has depression, for which she takes medication, and put the “normal aches and pains” down to running around after her “absolutely crazy” two-year-old son Sebastian.

“The doctors were astounded, not only by the fact I was this young, healthy woman, but the fact that, on the surface, I’d had no idea,” she added.

Charlotte was diagnosed with stage one TFE3 renal cell carcinoma – a rare form of kidney cancer.

In August, the day before her 31st birthday, she had surgery to have her kidney removed.

“[My consultant] had only heard of one case, it is rare. They didn’t have a lot of information,” she said.

“Thankfully it hadn’t spread… but they still needed to get it out pretty quickly.”

In September, Charlotte was told she was cancer free, but needs regular scans for the rest of her life as she is deemed high risk.

“The reality of it is, every six months I’m going to be scared. I’m going to be a mess. I’m cancer free, but I’m not free of cancer.”

She said she felt lucky to have a “brilliant life” with her husband Ben and their son, but adjusting to her new reality had been hard.

“Even though I haven’t lost my hair, even though I’m seemingly well… it’s taken its toll.”

She asked the doctors about lifestyle changes but was told “there was no rhyme or reason” for her tumour and to “be sensible” – eating healthily and not drinking too much alcohol.

“It’s a silly story, it’s a laugh and I’m happy people have a giggle. You walk into a room and you say the c-word, it makes people feel uncomfortable, it’s often awkward to talk about.

“But I want it to raise awareness… an adult Butlin’s weekender did indeed save my life.”