A 14-year-old teenager diagnosed with a cancerous lump in her thyroid is encouraging other young people to listen to their bodies and get checked.
Aoibh Maguire says she knew something was not right back in 2018, when she was constantly feeling sick.
She thought perhaps it was just the "shock" of having started first year in school.
She told Lunchtime Live she is due to undergo surgery on Wednesday.
"So we went to my GP and he thought that I might have been anemic - so he sent me for blood tests and it came back that my iron levels were OK.
"But my thyroid was borderline underactive, so they sent me back for another test a couple of months later and everything was clear.
"But I still felt that something just wasn't right with my body.
"I started getting chest pains and stuff towards the end of 2019, and then I found a lump in my neck just under my jaw.
"We went to my GP and we told her about the lump, and she said she wasn't too concerned about it - that it was just a swollen gland - but I just didn't feel that was right.
"So she decided to send me for an ultrasound - my ultrasound was originally scheduled for May of this year, but then coronavirus postponed that until August.
"I went for that and we were in there for about an hour: they checked the lump and they told me that it was just a harmless gland and it was just swollen.
"But in one procedure they go and check over the thyroid as well, and they found a nodule there.
"Most people do get nodules in their thyroid, but mine was quite abnormal so they were really concerned about it."
Staying positive
"A week or so later they called me back in and told me that they were really concerned about it.
"What they do is they rate these nodules on scale of a U1 to U5, and mine was a U5 - so that's being the most abnormal".
"They sent me for a biopsy and they said most likely it was cancer but they had to check with the bopsy".
She says she got a call two weeks ago that it was cancer, and that her surgery is set for Wednesday October 7th.
"I try to stay positive about it, though, cause there's no point in sitting around and crying about it.
"The doctors told me that I'm quite lucky cause I won't need chemotherapy or anything, that they just have to take out my thyroid which is good."
"I don't really have symptoms as such, there is a lump and there you can feel it.
"You can't see it, but you can defintely feel it".
"You kind of just have to listen to you body, don't be embarrassed about it.
"If you feel that there's something wrong with you, you need to go and get that checked up.
"If you don't know what it is, just make sure everything's OK and just go up with yourself.
"And if you feel a lump anywhere go and get it checked out - don't just leave it there and be like, 'Oh it probably isn't, I'm only a teenager - there's no way'".
She said her two brothers are dealing with it in their own way.
"Their way of thinking about it is 'it's fine if she's going to get surgery and it'll be out and then everything is OK'.
"I think that it has affected them, but they're trying to think about it as logically as they can."
She also said her friends at school have been "amazing".
"They're so great... they bring me ice-cream all the time, they're so good.
"I don't know how it's affecting them mentally, but they know that if they ever need to talk they can just go to me or anything".
