A woman with terminal stage 4 lung cancer has revealed the five symptoms that led to her diagnosis – including one warning sign she ignored “for years”.
Linda Chavez was just 34 when she discovered she had advanced lung cancer, also called Metastatic Bronchial Carcinoma. A series of misdiagnoses meant that Linda missed crucial opportunities to receive timely treatment, and the disease has since spread to her brain and bones.
Linda is not alone in grappling with the awful diagnosis, as lung cancer is the third most common type of cancer in the UK and more than 43,000 people are diagnosed each year, according to the NHS.
The illness can be difficult to catch early on as it does not cause symptoms in its initial stages. To help raise awareness about the disease and encourage others to be vigilant for its health red flags, Linda now shares her health battle via her TikTok channel @theterminalcancershow.
The brave mother has collaborated with fellow awareness account @younglungcancerisathing to outline some of the warning signs she experienced before she received the devastating health news, reports Surrey Live.
Persistent cough
Linda admitted she was lived with a mild cough for a long period before finally growing suspicious.
She said: “I had a cough for years. I can honestly say it was years. Eventually it was deeper [in my chest]: it felt very painful, it felt piercing in my chest. However, definitely, please do not ignore persistent cough.”
Headache
Linda explained that the second warning sign appeared in the form of a constant headache. She revealed that the pain was so intense and continuous that she would “roll out of bed and take Tylenol,” a brand of paracetamol, “every single morning” for more than nine months.
Although a headache does not necessarily indicate lung cancer, the symptom can occur when the disease has progressed to other parts of the body.
Mayo Clinic states: “Cancer that spreads can cause pain, nausea, headaches or other symptoms depending on what organ is affected.”
Aches and pains
Cancer that has spread to the bones can also cause aches and pains elsewhere in the body – something Linda struggled with before she was diagnosed.
She described the uncomfortable sensation as “kind of like when you stub your toe, that initial throbbing, pulsating pain”.
Fatigue
Linda pointed towards overwhelming tiredness and shortness of breath as additional signs of her deadly illness.
She said: “I was definitely exhausted beyond belief and out of breath. I literally had to take shallow breaths due to the pain that I was feeling every time I was inhaling or exhaling.”
Both symptoms are often dismissed as the result of poor sleep and exercise, but Johns Hopkins Medicine explains fatigue can be an early warning sign of multiple types of cancer.
The medical organisation writes: “Cancer uses your body’s nutrients to grow and advance, so those nutrients are no longer replenishing your body. This ‘nutrient theft’ can make you feel extremely tired”
Nausea
People who are suffering from advancing cancer are also likely to experience growing nausea. According to the National Institutes of Health, nausea and vomiting occurs between 40 and 70 prcent of cancer cases.
It is particularly common in those with cancers of the abdomen, brain, central nervous system, or bones.
Linda revealed that the cancer in her brain made her feel increasingly sick, stressing: “I was definitely very, very nauseous towards [the time I was] getting diagnosed.” This is because the cancer has affected her brain’s right frontal lobe, which she said “controls hunger, cravings, nausea.”
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