Tragically, a mother who dismissed a symptom because of the weight-loss program she was on was later diagnosed with fatal cancer.
West Sussex, UK resident Camilla Chapman was diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer and given a few months to live.
The mother of four claimed that she first experienced difficulty swallowing in March of last year, but at first she dismissed it as a straightforward consequence of her low-calorie diet.
A “black cloud” was put over her young family in February, nevertheless, when medical professionals discovered a “nasty lesion” after an endoscopic scan. Ten days later, they learned that the cancer had spread to her liver, lungs, and lymph nodes on both sides of her oesophagus.
In her fundraiser, the 40-year-old wrote: “The doctor told us there was nothing he can do, surgery isn’t an option and chemo may give us a bit more time but overall my life would be over within a year.”
“Nothing prepares you for this news, my immediate thoughts were of my boys, seeing them grow up, marrying my fiancé and also how was I going to support my family financially.”
“I was told there was nothing they can do; they can’t operate, and it is not curable,” Camilla continued in an interview with The Independent. All that was offered to me was palliative chemotherapy.
This will still make her ill and has a 50% chance of stopping the cancer’s spread.
She went on, “I don’t want to become a sick mummy,” “I am refusing to believe that this is it and I will do anything to support my body through this.”
Camilla told the news site that she was following a liquid-based diet and that she ignored the problem when soft foods, such as pancakes, became caught in her throat.
“I ignored it, thinking it was just because I hadn’t been eating properly and maybe I had just got lazy at chewing. I thought my body was just used to swallowing liquid and not food,” she explained.
She discovered a tiny lump in her jawline three months later, but she neglected to tell her doctor about her swallowing issues, so she only received an ultrasound scan that deceptively told her that “nothing was wrong.”
She returned to the doctor in January after developing a nagging “gut feeling” that something was wrong. She underwent a blood test, a digestive system endoscopy, and biopsies, which led to her tragic diagnosis, which was too late.
The proprietor of the nursery firm is now encouraging people to take notice of any symptoms, regardless of how slight they may be.