TV Reporter Thanked Viewer For Early Cancer Diagnosis [Video]

• Florida Journalist Victoria Price recently had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in her neck and is now recovering.
• Thanks to a “weird email” she received from a viewer who pointed out a lump on her neck, which the viewer said was the same as her cancer.
• That prompted Victoria to call her doctor and discovered she too had a cancerous tumor on her thyroid.

Broadcast journalist at WFLA in Tampa Bay, Florida, Victoria Price, was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer — something she couldn’t have known if not for an avid viewer who pointed it out for her.

On Tuesday, she had an interview with Savannah Guthrie on the Today show where she talked about her recovery process after she underwent the surgery to remove the tumor and some lymph nodes last week. 

“I’m feeling surprisingly well. I look like I lost a knife fight and I tell people I lost a knife fight. It’s Florida, crazier things have happened down here,” she joked about the scar left on her neck after the surgery. “But all things considered, I’d say I’m about 90% back to normal, or at least my new normal.”

What’s more consoling is that her doctor is “very very confident” all the cancer was already removed in the procedure.

“I’m really really lucky, I had my pathology report come back, the results of my biopsies from the morning of the surgery and everything looks really really good,” she said. “It had not spread any farther to what they initially detected. The surgeon is very very confident that they got all that nasty stuff out of there.”

Last month, a viewer sent her an email raising concern about the lump on her neck, which the sender said it reminded her of the same lump she used to have which turned out to be cancer. Then she advised the 28-year-old reporter to have her health checked.

Initially, she brushed it off. But when she read the “weird email” to her boyfriend, he advised her to call her doctor. So she did and found out it was a cancerous tumor.

“To give you just the short version, I had a nodule in the middle of my throat,” Price said. “That was actually forcing my thyroid glands out to the side of my neck.”

“Those glands had developed cancer and that had spread to my lymph nodes. So once it was pointed out to me, I could see it. Up until then I really hadn’t noticed. I think it was a gradual change over time and those are really hard to notice on yourself,” she added.

The support poured after fans heard her story and she’s very grateful for them. This experience also inspired her and she plans to start a foundation with her mom for “thyroid cancer awareness, especially in young women.”

Source: PEOPLE