A 19-year-old took to wearing fake eyelashes to cover up a ‘black eye’ that doctors had dismissed.
But Daraine Cunningham ended up discovering it was actually a sign she had a rare form of cancer.
At just nine years old, her primary school teacher had noticed her ‘swollen’ left eye, but GPs put it down to her having migraines. And Daraine went about assuming it was ‘her flaw’ because ‘everybody’s got something different about them’.
Advert
“It could have been a defect or something from birth, I don't know,” the Greater Manchester teen said. "I was always very insecure about it and I'd do anything to cover it up. I'd wear big false eyelashes.
"The thing I was told the most was, 'have you got a black eye?'”
Daraine says she soon started to laugh this off ‘because it did look like a black eye’ and would even have to reassure bouncers at nightclubs that she hadn’t been in a fight.
"I used to joke about it and I never ever really thought it could be cancer. Nobody ever did,” she said. "I thought most people suffer from migraines, so I never really thought that was linked to my eye.”
Advert
When she was 14, doctors told her she had a ‘harmless’ lesion behind the eye, and she was placed on a non-urgent operation waiting list.
"They [the doctors] said they didn't have to operate on it but they could, just to make me feel better because I was quite insecure about it. It made me feel quite ugly,” she added.
She was prescribed beta blockers during this time, but they apparently didn’t help and she would go for a couple of checkups a year to monitor the lesion’s growth.
It was finally removed on 24 February but on 26 March, doctors revealed they’d tested it and found it was cancerous.
Daraine was diagnosed with alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS), a rare cancer that comes from different types of soft tissue.
Advert
“I was over the moon when I finally had the operation but then they tested it and found out it was cancerous,” she said. "I was quite distraught and I walked out as soon as I heard the word cancer.
“Especially with me only being 18 at the time, it was a lot. In this generation, your looks are everything.”
Daraine has decided against chemotherapy or radiotherapy and has opted to have her eye removed in June to be replaced by a prosthetic eye.
"I'm coming to terms with it more now because in the end [the operation] is better for me,” she explained. "I'm accepting it but then some days I cry. It comes and goes in waves.
Advert
"I need to have it removed for my own sake or it could damage my future."
The 19-year-old urges others to make sure their abnormalities and symptoms are checked as she added: “If you notice anything unusual, get it checked. It could save your life.
"Don't let anything go unnoticed, anything small, keep pushing through with the doctors, hospitals, keep trying. Don't let them fob you off."
According to cancer charity Sarcoma UK, ASPS can occur anywhere throughout the body.
There are an average of six cases of ASPS diagnosed annually in England and ASPS makes up 0.15 percent of all soft tissue sarcomas.
Jess Battison