How a Football Injury Saved a Young Girl from Thyroid Cancer

Robert Smith investigates the story of Leyla Ozturk, a young girl who suffered a neck injury in a football match. This injury led to her discovering that she had thyroid cancer, saving her life.

It was just a standard Sunday morning for Leyla Ozturk as she prepared to play football for Skelton United. The game began being quite aggressive, with tackles flying in from both sides, a two-handed in-the-back push from an opposition player sent Leyla flying through the air.

She landed on her neck and immediately thought the worst. She was sent to the hospital, but she did not have a broken neck. But the crisis was just about to strike, while getting her neck examined, the doctors discovered a lump that turned out to be cancer.

She believes this injury saved her life: “It’s like there was someone watching over me!”

Leyla started playing football when she was a child, she had to persuade her grandad to take her.

“My grandad took me along after refusing to me because that girls didn’t play football.”

Her grandad eventually began coaching the girl’s team, as he wanted his granddaughter to play in the right environment.

From a football injury to a cancer diagnosis

During a match against York Railway Institute, Leyla suffered a serious neck injury.

The initial injury occurred when an opposition player pushed her causing her to flip and land on her neck.

She knew straight away it was bad: “Instantly, I knew there was something wrong with the left side of my body, I was like, I can’t feel my hands.”

As a result of all of this, an ambulance was called to the scene to check on her.

While all of this was going on, Leyla’s mum and grandad were there and helped comfort and support her.

Over the next few days, she began to notice that something was not right, after walking home from work she noticed “My lower left arm went blue”.

She was referred to A&E and after going through multiple tests for neck injury the doctors surprisingly found a lump that turned out to be cancer.

She had follicular variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma (FVPTC) which accounts for 10-15% of all thyroid cancer diagnoses.

The diagnosis did not come as a surprise, when they told her they had found a lump as cancer had run through her family.

Her grandma had thyroid cancer in her 30s, so when the doctors told her they had found a lump she believed that it would be cancer.

However, before this injury had occurred she showed no clear signs of cancer.

She now knows looking back that certain things linked to her cancer “The summer of 2023 my energy levels were really low but I just passed that off as low iron and so did my GPs.”

When she looks back at old photos of herself she can now notice the lump on her but at the time no one noticed it.

She then went to York Hospital to have surgery to remove the tumour and luckily they had found it early on and it had not spread anywhere else in her body.

After the surgery she then had to go through radioiodine therapy, the process was taking a tablet that kills the cancer cells.

She explained that the radiotherapy was the hardest part of the recovery because she had to isolate for five days in a hospital room.

She used this time alone to reflect on all that she had been through and try and put everything into perspective.

Getting back to normal life

Now that she had been diagnosed and was in the heart of the recovery process she wanted to try and live as normal of a life as possible.

She credits her friends and family a lot for helping her get through it.

“Ellie and Lucy have been incredible, absolute rocks. I don’t think I could have done any of this without them.”

Leyla’s best friend Ellie-Mae Travill described what it was like to hear about Leyla’s diagnosis and what she did to help her push through it.

“I tried to stay positive for my best friend. She FaceTimed me after her first surgery and it didn’t feel real and didn’t sink in for a while.”

“I mostly tried to not let her feel like it had taken over her life because it hadn’t. She was still Leyla.”

She went back to playing football and by coincidence, the first game back was against the team where she suffered the injury.

When the injury first happened she was furious with the girl who had injured her, but after everything, she went up to her hugged her and even thanked her.

She believes this injury saved her life as she may have never discovered the cancer until it was too late.

Balancing University

When she got the diagnosis she was in the middle of a Politics and International Relations course at York University.

She was offered time off to focus on her health, but she turned down the offer as she wanted to stay busy.

“I did consider taking a bit of time out, but I just thought if I can keep a somewhat normal life doing everything I usually do, maybe it would everything a little easier.”

The feeling of relief and her message to others

She is now in remission and is fully recovered.

She described the feeling of relief when she got the call saying she was in remission.

“You’re walking around for a year with this massive weight on your shoulders and you don’t even realise, then all of a sudden you’re told it’s worked.”

“I hadn’t really cried much during it, but that made me tear up a bit.”

She gave a message to everyone who is going through cancer or a hard time with health.

“Continue to do something that makes you busy, you don’t have to dwell on what it could or might be. I quickly realised it is okay to ask for help, I kept saying no because I thought I could deal with it on my own. You quickly realise you can’t.”

If you have any fears or want to read more stories like Leyla’s check out Cancer Today.