A mother believes a five-day drinking spree in Benidorm "saved her life" after she discovered her "hangover" was actually something deadly.

Clare Bushell drank excessively and got virtually no sleep during the five-day binge in the infamous Spanish party destination with nine friends, to mark the Spanish Fiesta in November 2023.

So when the 48-year-old began "violently vomiting" a couple of days after arriving back home, she presumed she'd "taken it too far" and was suffering from alcohol poisoning.

• Red flag signs of skin cancer after Adrian Chiles finds 'thing' on his shoulder


• Holiday shop had no clothes that fit, so I lost 66lbs and became a model

Nevertheless, Clare grew worried when she started experiencing severe chest pains and a 45-minute nosebleed days afterwards, prompting her to ring 111 who advised her to visit hospital.

At hospital, the mother-of-two was shocked when a biopsy that December uncovered a substantial mass covering a third of her chest. She was then diagnosed with Lymphoma.

After undergoing chemotherapy in January 2024, she now requires check-ups every three months to monitor whether the cancer has spread.

Claremaintains she's thankful that "kicking her body" during her boozygetaway "brought her symptoms to a head" because otherwise treatment might not have been possible if her symptoms had gone undetected much longer.

Now the safeguarding officer urges people to "know their body" and not to "give up the fight" if they suspect something might be wrong.

Clare, who lives in Lambeth, London, said: "I say that Benidorm saved my life. Going there and kicking my body the way it did probably brought the symptoms to a head.

"Whereas I would've been carrying on with life not knowing what was happening inside. I might have then been at a stage where I was beyond being able to have treatment. It had clearly been growing for a while.

"It made me so tired that my body couldn't cope so it showed it. I didn't really sleep for the whole time I was there. We were drinking all day and probably going until 5am or 6am in the morning. It was amazing.

"Because I'd drunk so heavily I came back and I started really violently vomiting. I didn't really think anything of it and I thought 'you deserve that'. I thought it was alcohol poisoning and I'd just taken it too far.

"As the week went on I just felt a bit more tired and then on Saturday I went to bed and I thought 'my chest just hurts'. I thought maybe from the vomiting I pulled something.

"I tried to go to sleep and I couldn't because it was hurting a lot. I also had a nose bleed that went on for about 45 minutes. I thought these are odd things to go together. I called 111 just to get it checked out.

"I phoned and was told that it was Covid. I thought 'I'm not really sure this is Covid'. The pain was just in my chest and it was so, so strong.

"I had a call back from the hospital a couple of hours later saying that somebody asked to check my symptoms and could I get to the hospital. I didn't agree with the Covid thing so off I went."

Following her hospital admission, Clare remained on the cancer ward for a month before a biopsy uncovered a metastasis on her chest, indicating the spread of cancer cells from a primary tumour to another area of the body.

Doctors diagnosed her with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), a form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

NHL is a type of blood cancer that affects lymphocytes, white blood cells, and DLBCL is fast-growing so usually requires treatment quickly after diagnosis, according to Cancer Research UK.

She was scheduled for six rounds of chemotherapy in January 2024, though they had to be postponed after she contracted sepsis on three separate occasions.

Fortunately, she received news in August that no additional treatment would be necessary. Clare said: "It was absolutely a shock. I'd convinced myself it was nothing. I was a bit numb really.

"I never dreamed it would be this outcome. It's really strange because a few months before I lost a partner who died of cancer. All of a sudden it was this big feature of life.

"I couldn't have thought it was alcohol poisoning for much longer. When I was throwing up I thought it was that pain in the chest was something weird.

"That pain was just too much and the nose bleeds on top of that. My first month in hospital my nose bleeds were just constant. It was just awful."

The parenthopes her experience helps to spread awareness to others about the symptoms to look out for and warns that 'if it doesn't feel right then it probably isn't'.

Clare said: "It's just knowing your body and being a bit more aware really. If it doesn't feel right then it probably isn't. Don't give up the fight.

"Because of my age everyone around me kept telling me it would be premenopausal. It was just when those pains hit my chest I was like 'actually, this is more'.

"Be aware that there's not only breast cancer, there are other cancers. I'd never heard of Lymphoma."