As a television news reporter in Tampa, Victoria Price is accustomed to finding her inbox full of emails from viewers offering story ideas, criticism and praise, along with the occasional fashion critique.
When she opened an email in June that had a small message in the subject line but was otherwise empty, Price, 28, was tempted to dismiss it as a bad joke or spam. But then she impulsively decided to hand her phone to her boyfriend, Ryan Smith.
“I said, ‘Look at this weird email I just got,’ ” recalled Price, an investigative journalist for NBC affiliate WFLA.
A woman from out of state had seen a report by Price on the evening news a few hours earlier and had spotted something that troubled her, she said.
“Hi, just saw your news report,” the viewer wrote. “What concerned me is the lump on your neck. Please have your thyroid checked. Reminds me of my neck. Mine turned out to be cancer. Take care of yourself.”
Price, who had never noticed anything unusual about the appearance of her neck, said she didn’t think the message was worth taking seriously.
Smith thought otherwise.
Health-care workers are opening their mailboxes and finding their own portraits
“He said, ‘You know, you did say you’ve been feeling a little more tired than usual these last few months,’ ” Price said. “He told me that I should call my doctor and have it checked out.”
Several weeks later, after she had had an ultrasound and a blood panel screening, Price received startling news: She had papillary thyroid cancer that had started to spread to her lymph nodes. Her doctor recommended that she have surgery as soon as possible.
“It was explained to me that I had a large nodule growing right in the middle of my thyroid, and it was pushing my gland so that it bulged from the side of my neck,” Price said. “That’s what the woman who emailed me had noticed. Fortunately for me, she reached out about it.”
On July 27, Price underwent surgery at Tampa General Hospital to have her thyroid removed. Her surgeon also removed 19 cancerous lymph nodes, she said, and she was relieved to learn that she didn’t immediately need to do any follow-up treatment apart from daily hormone replacement medicine.
Victoria Price after surgery at a Tampa hospital to remove her cancerous thyroid last month. (Victoria Price)
“It’s serendipity that somebody noticed it on television and told her about it, but to discover it this way is really not uncommon,” said Gary Clayman, Price’s surgeon and the director of the Clayman Thyroid Center in Tampa, explaining that a common symptom is a visible mass in the neck.
“Victoria is lucky that this was detected sooner than later,” he added.
A few days before the surgery, in a post on Twitter, Price alerted WFLA viewers to her diagnosis and thanked the observant stranger who may have saved her life.
Advice from a woman who survived covid-19, the 1918 flu — and cancer
“As a journalist, it’s been full throttle since the pandemic began,” she wrote. “Never-ending shifts in a never-ending news cycle. We were covering the most important health story in a century, but my own health was the farthest thing from my mind. Until a viewer emailed me last month.
“Turns out, I have cancer,” Price wrote. “And I owe it to one of our wonderful @WFLA viewers for bringing it to my attention. I’ll be off work for a bit after tomorrow, but I’ll see y’all soon.”
She was stunned, she said, when her tweet rapidly built up nearly 20,000 likes.
“I never in a million years thought it would develop this kind of reaction,” she said. “Everyone’s kindness, love and concern has been overwhelming.”
Victoria Price, post-surgery in Tampa last month. (Victoria Price)
Now back at work, Price said she hopes to launch a foundation before year’s end to promote thyroid cancer awareness for young adults.
“I’ve learned that for young people, particularly women between ages 20 and 35, this is the most commonly diagnosed cancer,” she said, with about 53,000 people diagnosed every year.
“I think it’s important to make this something that’s discussed more often, just like we discuss breast cancer and prostate cancer,” Price said. “My goal is to develop a platform for young professionals who might not be going to the doctor as often.”
If not for that alert viewer, Price said, she might have gone for months without knowing she had a problem.
“What if I was an accountant working in an office? Or what if I was working at home by myself?” she said. “I’m fortunate that a lot of people see me because of my job. It’s very humbling to know that this person took the time to shoot me this little email. Your health is your wealth — without it, you don’t have anything.”
Price remained calm when she learned she had cancer, she said, probably because of her journalism background.
“I took a few seconds to process it then said: ‘Okay, what’s the game plan? What are we going to do about it?’ ” she said. “TV reporters are conductors of chaos — we’re always 30 seconds to airtime, covering problems that need to be solved. So it takes a little more to rattle me, I think, than the average person.”
The woman who spotted the suspicious lump in her neck is a mother with several children who doesn’t want any attention for her potentially life saving act, Price said.
“We’ve exchanged texts back and forth and hope to get together at some point,” she said. “I’m so incredibly thankful for what she did. If she hadn’t sent that email, I may have never seen my doctor, and the cancer would have continued to grow.
“I just want to thank her from the bottom of my heart for what she did,” she said.
