A mother-of-three has spoken of her devastation after what she believed to be a ‘pulled muscle’ in her shoulder turned out to be stage four cancer.

The first sign that something was wrong came when Claire Turner, 43, tried to pass a croissant to her daughter in the car.

Her husband, Mark Turner, 49, an accountant from Didcot, Oxfordshire, was in the front passenger seat as he took the family on a weekend trip in October last year.

As he turned to give the cake to 11-year-old Annabelle in the backseat, he felt a pain in his right shoulder.

Although doctors initially said it was a torn ligament, Turner became concerned weeks later when she noticed a slight lump the size of a £2 coin on the top of her shoulder.

The growth continued to increase over the next few weeks and became so painful that she could no longer wear a bra or carry a purse.

After multiple visits to her GP and hospital, Ms Turner underwent a biopsy in January and scans revealed it was stage four melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer.

Ms Turner, who used sunbeds in her 20s, now faces an uncertain future and is urging people to stay away from harmful UV rays to avoid the same fate.

Mum-of-three Claire Turner, 43, has spoken of her devastation after what she believed to be a ‘pulled muscle’ in her shoulder turned out to be stage four cancer.

Although doctors initially said it was a torn ligament, Turner became concerned weeks later when she noticed a slight lump the size of a £2 coin on the top of her shoulder.

Around 17,500 new melanomas are diagnosed in the UK each year and numbers are rising at an alarming rate.

Since the 1990s, rates have nearly doubled for women and nearly tripled for men. Today, more than 2,300 people die from the disease every year in England.

Melanoma begins in melanocytes, which are cells that produce melanin and give skin its color.

However, it can grow rapidly and enter the bloodstream, causing tumors that invade other parts of the body; this is called stage four cancer.

At this stage, treatment becomes difficult: Less than half of patients with stage four melanoma survive more than five years from diagnosis.

Ms Turner said: ‘It was a blessing that the injury happened. I don’t know what I did that day, but apparently some movement made the tumor swell and move.

‘We were going to the beach with friends for the weekend. We prepared a breakfast package for the children.

In January, Ms Turner had a biopsy and scans revealed stage four melanoma. The image above shows a scan of Ms. Turner’s shoulder, with the tumor in white

‘As we came down they all said they were hungry. I handed the breakfast of croissants, bananas and a bottle of water back to one of them and felt like a pulled muscle.

‘This is painful’ I thought, but then I carried on with my day. Carrying a bag was pretty painful, and leaning on it that night was pretty painful too.’

The accountant visited the hospital after the trip and after an x-ray showed nothing serious, doctors told him he appeared to have a torn ligament.

“They gave me painkillers and told me to keep it strapped in, rest for a few weeks, it should go away, and it did,” Ms. Turner recalls.

Weeks later, on his way to work, he noticed that his shoulder appeared slightly swollen.

He said: ‘‘I went to the GP and was told shoulder injuries can take a while to heal.’

The mother made a doctor’s appointment online and was referred to an orthopedic consultant in December.

He was referred to a cancer clinic after an MRI scan and faced an agonizing wait for a diagnosis at Christmas, “expecting the worst”.

Ms Turner, who used sunbeds in her 20s, now faces an uncertain future and is urging people to stay away from harmful UV rays to avoid the same fate.

Claire said: ‘It was quite noticeable at this point and I had quite a large lump in my shoulder. I couldn’t carry a bag, I couldn’t wear a bra.

‘I went through a spiral over Christmas. It was terrible and I expected the worst. ‘This is the lowest I’ve felt this entire trip.’

When she was finally diagnosed, Ms Turner says she was left ‘breathless’, adding: ‘It threw me sideways, I was just shocked.

‘Melanoma is a dangerous mole and it goes on from there, that’s what I thought.

‘It starts with a skin lesion, you look at it and ignore it, so I thought that was skin cancer.

‘The doctor said I had a 50/50 chance of coming out the other side of this.’

In the vast majority of cases of melanoma, the ‘primary tumor’ (where the cancer starts on the skin, usually a mole) is known to occur.

But in about three percent of cases, it is never found. These patients are diagnosed only after tumors begin to appear in the body.

Ms Turner received immunotherapy but had to stop treatment in August after it caused inflammation of her pituitary gland and optic nerve

Experts believe that in these cases, the primary tumor at some point shrinks and disappears, meaning it remains unnoticed.

Therefore, doctors say that not only moles that change and grow, but also moles that shrink in size are a warning sign that should be checked.

Ms Turner said: ‘There was no primer on my skin. The nurse told me: “There was something on your skin and your body may have healed it.”

‘But the cancer cells went so deep that they traveled around for months, even years, creating other tumors.’

Ms Turner received immunotherapy but had to stop treatment in August after it caused inflammation of her pituitary gland and optic nerve.

Despite this, he remains philosophical about his situation: ‘I’m grateful to have it checked out.

‘My nurse told me when I was diagnosed 10 years ago that I would have a six to seven month chance of living. ‘That was quite shocking.’

Although scans revealed other tumors in his liver, leg and hip muscles, and throughout his shoulder, these are now shrinking or gone.

One of the biggest risk factors for skin cancer is exposure to UV rays.

Ms Turner is now urging others to take care of their skin to prevent the same thing from happening to them.

She said: ‘I used a sunbed and got sunburned trying to tan, the tan doesn’t last long. Fake tan doesn’t last long and neither does real tan, but which is safer?’