“I had unusually high protein in my urine. I was familiar with the old ‘lose weight’ diagnosis. She was almost, like, talking past me. Not present. Asked me questions, literally responded as though I said the exact opposite of what I’d said. I decided to get a second opinion. So, here we are now. I have cancer. I have a 5-month-old baby. I’m not even caught up on Big Little Lies. Definitely not what I expected.”
‘A doctor said to ‘go lose some weight’ and the symptoms would go away. I didn’t like that answer.’: New mom diagnosed with Bone Marrow Cancer after warning signs misdiagnosed as obesity
‘How blessed are we that I got pregnant?! I would’ve never known I had a tumor if it weren’t for the baby. I felt fine.’: Mom-to-be learns of cancer diagnosis thanks to surprise pregnancy
“This photo was taken 5 minutes before the doctor told me my tumor was cancerous. At our first ultrasound, my doctor found ‘a baseball size tumor’ on my ovary. She thought it was benign, but couldn’t tell me without biopsy. They don’t do that to pregnant women. ‘So I have to wait 9 months to find out if this thing is benign or cancerous?!’ My mind was racing. This little miracle inside me saved me from letting cancer go further.”
‘My doctor wouldn’t look at me. I stood there, crying like a baby. ‘I have it.’ My husband said the same. ‘What will happen to the kids?!’ My mind went into full blown panic.’
“I snapped. He thought I was going to rough him up. I wanted to. Then, I did the one thing you should never, ever do. For two weeks straight, I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up. I could tell he was scared.”
‘I was asked if I had any questions. All I could manage to mumble was, ‘Will I lose my hair?’ I was 16. I was in high school. I was a girl. I couldn’t be bald. I just couldn’t.’
“Three words. That’s all it took. Three simple words. Everything was happening too fast. I just sat there, staring at the wall, trying not cry. When homecoming came, I had this beautiful red dress. I put on heels, makeup. Then I looked in the mirror and crumbled to the ground. What was I thinking? I looked ridiculous. I looked sick.”
‘I sat in the waiting room, eager for my big sigh of relief. It didn’t come. Like many of us, I thought I had all the time in the world. Then, I received the blow most of us fear. My heart sank.’
“I didn’t have the symptoms or risk factors. Everyone said, ‘It’s probably nothing.’ I walked up to my husband, tears in my eyes, in total shock. I worried I’d never get to see my children grow up. The fear of the unknown started taking over.”
‘I was 13 hours away with $1.32 in my account. Tears in my eyes, I gently opened the door. There was a look of shock on her face. ‘How did you get here?!’
“I wrote, ‘My mom is dying in hospice care and I feel guilty every day I’m not there sitting by her side.’ I awoke to something so unexpected. ‘Alex! Oh my god, Alex!’”
‘I woke up with the worst pain. ‘They’re just headaches,’ I said. Something in my mom’s heart kept pushing. ‘There’s something in your brain,’ the doctor said. I was 11, and so confused.’
“I was rushed to the PICU. I tried to stay calm, but I was terrified. I couldn’t help but think, ‘How could I have done anything wrong to deserve this?’ I hid everything behind a smile, but I knew my life would never be ‘normal’ again.”
‘I wore red lipstick during my mastectomy. The nurses joked I looked ‘too good’ for somebody having surgery. I had a huge party the night before. I bought a wig to look like Britney Spears!’
“We can all become overwhelmed with the negativity in the world. From my experience during cancer I can tell you there is so much good. My support even came from strangers.”
‘I STILL had this annoying, itchy, dry cough. ‘They want me to go to the hospital. They don’t want me to drive there, and they want me to go now,’ I nervously explained to my husband.’
“He tells me to view the images on the screen and proceeds to tell me, ‘You’re really lucky you came in today, because something is definitely wrong.’ I immediately lost all color in my face.”
‘I was next to the woman who took the X-ray. I saw the shock on her face’: How this little boy went from stomach pains to cancer
“I started having this overwhelming feeling that something was wrong.”
