Cancer diagnosis was a 'sledgehammer to my life'

A BBC presenter has said it was a "huge sledgehammer" to her life after she was diagnosed with a rare lung cancer.

In April, Emma Britton, a BBC radio presenter in Somerset and formerly in Bristol, was diagnosed with incurable stage four lung cancer.

She is now on a targeted therapy drug and preparing to make her return to the radio later this week. She added she has never smoked or vaped, and the cancer has been diagnosed as genetic.

"When people ask me how I am I say I'm doing the best I can. I've still not got my head around it," Ms Britton said.

The presenter, who has previously hosted the breakfast programmes for both BBC Radio Bristol and BBC Radio Somerset, said she noticed a cough in March and she started to feel "a bit run down".

A nurse at her GP surgery checked her over and told her to get a spray from a chemist but reassured her that it was not cancer.

"I had a feeling, I call it my spidery senses. In my mind I thought - I wonder if I have lung cancer," Ms Britton said.

"Three days later, I woke up and couldn't breathe very well."

She was admitted to Musgrove Park Hospital and a few days later, doctors told her she had lung cancer.

"Even now when I think about it, it blows my mind," Ms Britton said.

"I've never smoked, never vaped, I don't really drink.

"May was a really dark time, really dark. I wrote my own eulogy in hospital, that's how bad I felt."

Emma Britton married John Turner after her cancer diagnosis

After doing tests over a number of weeks and pausing her celebrant work, Ms Britton's oncologist told her that the cancer she has is genetic, which means a targeted therapy could be used.

"I'm in a different place now. I take eight pills a day, they look like paracetamol. They hunt for the cancer and in many cases they can hold it," Ms Britton said.

"When people say you look well, I feel like a fraud. How do you move forward living like this?

"You can stay on the targeted therapy as long as it's working and some have lived on it for a number of years."

Ms Britton is returning to present several shows on BBC Radio Somerset in August and hoping to return to her celebrant work in the autumn.