A nursery nurse who gained weight for a year without knowing why has had a cyst the size of three footballs removed. After visiting her GP Amanda Ball, 19, from Stoke-on-Trent was diagnosed with an ovarian cyst.
Amanda said: "It took two porters to carry the cyst to the pathology lab. I am very grateful to the surgeons. It would have killed me."
Friends and relatives, concerned about the teenager's increased weight, had persuaded her to seek medical advice.
Her father Phil said: "She was getting bigger and bigger, so we realised something had to be done and she went to the doctor.
"She went at the right time. If the cyst had burst she would have died."
Amanda had her operation two weeks ago at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent.
She is now making a swift recovery and doctors do not think she will suffer any long-term problems after the removal of the cyst, which weighed three stone.
