A mum-of-two has been left fighting for her life after a routine eye test revealed a devastating diagnosis. Hannah Quigley-McKie, 39, hadn't had an eye test since she was 14 years old as she had always had 'perfect' sight.
But while out shopping for her teenage daughter's birthday party at the Stretford Arndale in January 2024 she decided to walk into an opticians and make an appointment for a standard eye check-up after she experienced 'flashing' in her vision.
Opticians suspected a detatched retina and referred her to Manchester eye hospital, where she was then referred onwards to the oncology unit at Liverpool hospital.
Within a week she was seen by doctors, who revealed she had a large tumour behind her eye. She was diagnosed with ocular melanoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer, and the week after underwent an operation to have the tumour removed. "It was that quick," Carole McKie, Hannah's mum, told the Manchester Evening News. "The ocular melanoma would have started somewhere like a freckle behind the eye but had grown and grown and grown. "Until she got symptoms of this flashing there was no cause for concern." Sadly, it came just two months after Carole's husband died from cancer.