A CANCER survivor whose life was turned upside down after her diagnosis is hoping to help others by sharing her experience and health conscious recipes.

Linzi Atkinson was diagnosed with kidney cancer earlier this year, undergoing a serious four hour operation to remove a 7cm tumour from her left kidney as well as a number of her lymph nodes.

Although she had been living and working in Manchester, after she received the news the 29-year-old had to return to her mum's home in Kendal.

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"I just did not expect [the diagnosis] whatsoever," she said. "Because I am 29 and I am fit and healthy and it's just not what you think at all.

"I had to give up everything. I had only started a new job in January. I lived in Manchester, I was planning on moving to Leeds for my work, I was quite sociable. I had to cancel my plans."

Ms Atkinson said that she had the operation in June, which she was told was her best chance of a cure. Fortunately, the cancer had not spread to anywhere else and she did not need any chemotherapy.

She described the week in hospital after the operation as 'the most horrific week' of her life.

"I had tubes coming out of my neck," she recalled. "I had a catheter for five days. I couldn't walk, I couldn't eat. It was just horrific."

Having been now been given the all clear, which she described as 'the best news in the world', Ms Atkinson has decided to set up a blog to tell her story and occupy her during recovery.

"I was literally going mad," she said. "There's only so much TV you can watch and my mum had to go back to work and I was starting to get a bit frustrated and depressed. I had nothing to do and I was sick of being in pain."

She explained that she had started to crave fresh and healthy foods after she returned home from hospital and so has started to share her own recipes for healthy but delicious dishes.

"I've been really overwhelmed with positive comments," Ms Atkinson, who works in marketing, said.

"It really kept me positive and focused and I know it sounds daft but I think without it I would have got a bit depressed and not really wanted to do anything. It made me want to get up in the morning and write."

Ms Atkinson will be going back to work in September and is hoping for a 'fresh start' in Leeds.

"I think anything that I can do to help the every day person or somebody else recovering from surgery or that has cancer then I've done my job," she said. "That makes me happy."

Linzi's blog can be found at http://www.linziloves.com/