A MUM has revealed how becoming infected with a worm disease could end up saving her life after a cancer diagnosis.

Pippa Taylor, 43, from Knowles Brow near Clitheroe, became infected with the tropical disease while teaching in Africa, and it led to her being diagnosed with cancer.

After returning from teaching in Kenya from 2013 to 2014, blood tests showed she had nematodes, a type of microscopic worm in her lungs.

But even after being treated for the condition, Ms Taylor still didn't feel right and was eventually given the bombshell new she had bowel cancer.

Ms Taylor, who has a 12-year-old son Freddie and was diagnosed with cancer after her GP sent her for a colonoscopy, said: “It was a real shock.

"We were expecting to find worms and it ended up being cancer."

She then went for more tests and underwent a CT scan before going to see a consultant at Burnley General Teaching Hospital.

It was then that she was told the cancer had spread through her liver and was inoperable.

Ms Taylor, who was a teacher mostly at Stonyhurst and also last worked at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Blackburn, said: "I felt faint and dazed to be told this news.

"But the consultant, Judith Salaman was so lovely and kind, it made it easier to deal with.

"I can still remember her words.

"She said 'I can't cure you but I can make you better'.

"That was a lovely thing to say and it really lifted me.

“Mrs Salaman really is phenomenal and I felt I was really blessed to have her as my consultant.

“She is such a lovely person and I felt she was going to do her best to look after me and she has done.”

She then began to have surgery to have the tumour removed from her bowel but when surgeons tried, they were unable to remove the tumour.

Under the care of oncologists at East Lancashire Hospitals Trust’s Royal Blackburn and Burnley hospitals, she started chemotherapy in August 2016 at Burnley hospital to shrink the tumour and manage the cancer.

To her surprise, she found chemotherapy to be a very positive experience.

She had almost 30 rounds of chemotherapy and last summer, she went to see a consultant where she was told they were sending her scans to specialists in Leeds as she had had such a good response to chemotherapy.

She said: “They told me they thought they might be able to do something for my liver, but only if the bowel cancer could be removed.

“I stopped chemotherapy in October and had an operation and this time they were able to remove the bowel tumour.

“I have had a scan and am now awaiting the results to see if they can operate on my liver.

“It is a glimmer of hope and I don’t want to get too excited but I am cautiously optimistic.

“But it is amazing as I have gone from being told I have terminal cancer to being told they might be able to operate on my liver.

“If this happens, it might halt my cancer or it might buy me another five years or so.

“I don’t know what my prognosis was before this as I didn’t want to know. But I knew it wasn’t good.”

She said she also feels she was 'almost lucky' to have the worm disease as it inadvertently led to her bowel cancer diagnosis.

She said: “Having these nematodes actually ended up doing me a favour.

“Being diagnosed with bowel cancer was just one of those things.

“Instead of thinking: ‘Why me?’ I think ‘Why not me?’

“I am hoping for a miracle but until then, I just take each day at a time and get on with it.”