Summary
A mum from Cheltenham was diagnosed with a rare cancer after catching conjunctivitis – and has now run out of treatment options on the NHS just a year later.
Details
Charlotte Surgenor, 30, has undergone two rounds of chemotherapy at Cheltenham General Hospital over a course of 36 weeks – but due to the lack of NHS research into the type of cancer she has, she has been told that there is nothing more the NHS can do for her at this time.
Charlotte and her husband Tom, 32, are now fundraising to pursue private medical treatment, and are faced with spending hundreds of thousands of pounds either on a course of drugs, or clinical trials overseas. Despite the uncertainty around Charlotte’s future treatment options, the couple are determined to continue to “live life normally” for the sake of their daughter Maisie, aged two.
Tom questioned if the cancer would have been detected without Charlotte getting conjunctivitis, as this raised alarm bell that then led to scans. Charlotte’s health troubles began towards the end of May 2025, when she caught conjunctivitis from Maisie. After contracting the common eye infection, Charlotte noticed that one of her eyelids remained droopy, and never fully reopened.
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Tom said: “We went to various different pharmacies and eye places that gave her eye drops to treat it, but it didn’t clear. So we decided to go and see an eye specialist in Cheltenham, who told us that she thought Charlotte might have Horner syndrome.” Horner syndrome is a neurological condition affecting the eye and surrounding area, typically on one side of the face.
It is a sign of underlying nerve damage, and affects the sympathetic nerves connecting the brain to the eyeball, which control the movement of the eyelid. Tom continued: “Charlotte was referred for a scan at Gloucester Royal Hospital at the end of June last year, and was kept in overnight for a biopsy. “We then found out a week or so later that she had a growth in her throat and nasal area, and that it was cancer.
It had also spread to her lung and her liver. “It didn’t feel real. It never even crossed my mind that it could be that.
She just seemed so young to be diagnosed, and she’s always been very fit and healthy, so there were no other real signs.” Charlotte was diagnosed with metastatic Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma, a rare form of salivary gland cancer, for which there is currently no cure. It accounts for just one per cent of malignancies in the head and neck.
Report source: Gloucestershire Live
