A coffee fan’s £20 Pret subscription may have saved her life – as maxing out her daily cup allowance was the ‘red flag’ that revealed she had cancer.
Zee Valentina, from West London, started having ‘debilitating’ fatigue in January 2023 and said she put it down to work stress, as she often stayed late in the office. But when the 31-year-old started using all five free coffees included in her coffee subscription rather than her usual two, she thought it was a ‘red flag’.
Coupling this with two small, pea-sized lumps that appeared on the sides of her neck, Zee visited her GP, who she said advised her to take vitamin D tablets. But after months of her symptoms worsening and going back and forth to the GP, Zee said she pushed for a diagnosis and was referred to Hammersmith Hospital.
The tech company project manager said a PET CT scan revealed she had stage four Hodgkin lymphoma, which had spread to her neck, chest and liver in August 2023. Despite her biggest lump growing to the size of a golf ball, Zee claimed she struggled to get a diagnosis.
Zee said: “I started to feel extremely bad fatigue, it wasn’t the normal type. I thought I probably just burned myself out and was overworked. Even if I had 13 hours of sleep on the weekends, it wasn’t enough for me.
“I started having five coffees a day from January to August. The subscription was £20 a month and I thought I’d make the most of it. I’d have five coffees with double shots and would get the shakes, but I was so desperate for help. Before that I would only have a maximum of two coffees.
“That was the biggest red flag. I felt very drowsy, so tired that I couldn’t think or function. I was in the office till 9pm most nights so I thought ‘no wonder I feel like this’. I blamed it on myself, but little did I know it was cancer growing inside me. I started to feel small pea-sized lumps on the sides of my neck.
“I told my GP all of my symptoms and he said I had anxiety and lack of vitamin D. He brushed me off and told me to order vitamin D tablets. I started taking them for two months, but I felt worse. I just knew in my heart something was wrong. I had a gut feeling, and I was going to trust that because in my life, my gut feeling has always been right.
“I kept going back and forth to the GP and complaining. I was thinking that whatever it is, it’s now growing and brewing inside me. I now had four lumps and the biggest was the size of a golf ball. The rheumatologist called me after a couple of days [after the CT scan] and said it was sadly Hodgkin lymphoma.
“At this point, I was at work, I fell to the floor and started crying. Everything in my life came crashing down. I just felt like my entire world went dark. I wanted to go on holiday and train more, it was a new goal of mine to get fit and everything went to a standstill.”
Following her diagnosis, Zee said she had six months of chemotherapy at Hammersmith Hospital, but it turned out to be unsuccessful. Zee was ‘devastated’ and needed additional chemotherapy as well as a stem cell transplant.
Zee said: “Sadly the lymphoma had returned in my neck, chest, and liver. I was absolutely devastated. The doctors said they didn’t expect this. My whole world went dark, I went into a deep depression. I wanted to live and see my future. It’s very subtle, you don’t need to be so severely sick, it can be something as little as severe fatigue.”
But in November 2024, Zee said she was given the ‘amazing’ news that her cancer was in remission.
Zee said: “You are the only person that’s going to fight for you. We get one life, one body, you shouldn’t feel guilty for advocating for yourself. In November, I got the amazing news that I’m in remission. It’s so easy to ignore it but if it’s cancer, it grows. If I was taken seriously earlier I could have caught it at an earlier stage.”
Zee is speaking out to raise awareness of Hodgkin lymphoma.
What is Hodgkin lymphoma?
Hodgkin lymphoma is an uncommon cancer that develops in the lymphatic system, which is a network of vessels and glands spread throughout your body. The most common symptom of Hodgkin lymphoma is a painless swelling in a lymph node, usually in the neck, armpit or groin.
