Doctors Said It Was ANXIETY But It Was CANCER Melissa Stomach Cancer The Patient Story

Hi, I'm Melissa. I'm from Clarksville, Tennessee. I have three children. They are all grown and gone and my cancer diagnosis is stage four metastatic adenocarcinoma, basically stomach cancer. In late 2021, I got COVID. It was a very mild case of COVID, but nonetheless afterwards I found myself clearing my throat a lot and I felt like I had a golf ball or something stuck in my throat. So I went to a near nose and throat specialist and he ran a scope up my nose and down my throat and he said everything looked great, probably just had acid reflux. So he gave me omeprazole and told me to come back in two weeks if it didn't work. Well, it didn't work, so I went back. He doubled the dose. I went another two weeks and no change. So he set up an upper endoscopy for me, went and had that done. The surgeon who did my endoscopy came out and said that everything looked great, that basically a lot of women come in complaining with the same symptoms and he chalks it up to anxiety or that it was just all in your head. So he practically called me a hypochondriac and he even noted that in my medical records. So after that, the symptoms, they come and go. Sometimes it was really bad and then sometimes it wasn't. I would have a little bit of nausea here and there. I would just chalk that up to hormones or just random things like that. So in September of 2022, we went to our favorite place, which is Mexico, and we rented a house and we took a big group of friends with us. When I was on the plane, I got a little bit of motion sickness, which was completely not normal for me. When we got off the plane and got on the transfer van, we hadn't been on the van very long and I had to roll the window down and throw up out the window. So he got to a spot where he could pull over and I threw up some more. I had a little bit of a backache. I always get a UTI when I go out of the country. So I just thought, okay, I have a UTI and the vomiting was just a one-off symptom of it. So I got some antibiotics and took them and everything resolved very quickly. But the only other unusual thing was I could not eat or drink anything with sugar in it. I could eat and drink anything else, but I could not eat and drink anything with sugar in it. It would make me sick. So when we came back, I started having some nausea and my friend noticed that every time we went out to eat, I would just take one bite of food or I wouldn't eat at all. And I was on Ozempic. So I told her, I said, don't worry about it. I'm on Ozempic. That's just, you know, how it works. Then I went to have a massage and the massage therapist told me afterwards, she said, Melissa, you need to go to a doctor and get some scans done. She said that she could feel something in my back that she had never felt before in anyone that she had ever given a massage to. And she really felt like I needed to go to my doctor and talk to her about it. So I set up an appointment with my primary care physician and got in really quick with her. And I told her what was going on. And I told her that, you know, is it the Ozempic? It probably is the Ozempic. Thankfully, I have a very proactive primary care physician. And she said, Melissa, it might be the Ozempic, but let's just do some tests and make sure it isn't something else. And my entire family had had emergency gallbladder removal. So she sent me to get ultrasound on my gallbladder and I had a ton of stones in it and a ton of sludge. So on October the 6th, we took my gallbladder out. I felt fantastic after that. I had no nausea. I was sore from the surgery, but I felt great for about three or four days. Then I started, a lot of saliva was building up in my mouth. I felt like I had to spit all the time. And when I would try and take pills, it would get stuck in my throat. And I started having hot flashes like every 20 minutes, 24 seven. So I texted my primary care physician and she set me up that week with an ultrasound for my thyroid. And it showed that I had a small boider on it. So she sent me back to the surgeon who took my gallbladder out. And she said, you have nothing to worry about with your thyroid. It's so small. I can't even aspirate it. I can't even do a biopsy. And then I asked her, I said, why am I so nauseated? So it was debilitating. I was wearing bands on my arms, pads behind my ears. I mean, it was nothing would help, no medication, nothing would help with my nausea. And the year before I was diagnosed with H. pylori and I asked her if I could have it again. And she said, well, let's just check it out. So Thursday of that same week, she did an endoscopy and she said that it was very challenging for her because my stomach was paralyzed. And I had just an enormous amount of undigested food. There was mushrooms floating around and herbs floating around. And, um, you know, she had a hard time really examining my stomach, but as she turned around to come up and out, she found a mass, um, where my stomach just right before where my stomach goes into my esophagus. So she took some biopsies and she did, there was no mention of cancer. She just said, um, you know, I really don't know what it is, but we'll find out and we'll get back with you. And she gave me some medicine to help with my stomach being paralyzed. And after that, um, all of my nausea went away. It was just purely because everything was just sitting in my stomach. So all of my nausea went away and, um, I got a call not, I guess the next week and she, it was my surgeon and she said, Melissa, I'm so sorry, but you have invasive adenocarcinoma. And I said, well, what do you mean? What is that? And she said, it's a very aggressive cancer and it's in your stomach. So I really didn't have any words. I didn't know what, what to say. We got off the phone. Um, this was a horrible thing to do, but I couldn't talk. So I texted my husband and said, it's cancer. So immediately he came home, my mother-in-law and my father-in-law came over. My parents have dementia, so they didn't come. And our preacher came and we prayed and we talked and, you know, it really still hadn't sunk in to me that it was, that it was really a big deal. You know, I'm thinking I'll just have my stomach taken out and I'll be skinny for the rest of my life and win-win. So I had a PET scan set up for the following week. Um, when I had the PET scan done immediately afterwards, we discussed it with a pulmonologist. Um, we walked in the room and sat down and waited on her. And in the upper left-hand corner, there was a television that had this red, bright red, yellow, like ball kind of, kind of just turning. And I thought it was a screen saver. And then when she came in, she, um, she grabbed my hand and she said, it's really bad. It's really, really bad, Melissa. And she said, I'm so sorry. And I said, well, what do you mean? You know, and she said, well, you know, there's lymph node involvement. And I said, how many lymph nodes? And she said, there's too many to count, Melissa. And that was my PET scan that was playing on the television. Um, so it was, um, it was a little scary, a whole lot scary, but still, you know, I'm thinking this can't be right. You know, well, I'll just, I'll be able to still have, be able to have surgery. She called an oncologist and had me to meet with her the very next day. And that was Dr. Pelster. And she walked in and she introduced herself and she, um, you know, drew a picture of the stomach and she was showing us where my cancer was, um, the lymph node involvement. And then she said, um, so because you have lymph node involvement from your neck to your pelvis, it's, you have stage four cancer. And when she said stage four, that then I started realizing the seriousness of it. And right after that, she said, um, let's, let's talk about prognosis. And she said that, um, statistically, someone with stage four metastatic stomach cancer on average may make it a year with treatment, plus or minus a few months. If I didn't do treatment, I would just wouldn't have as many months to make it. But she strongly suggested that I do treatment because she said I would, it would really help, um, my symptoms, the symptoms that were, I was going to start having with the stomach cancer. She said that I qualified for a trial, a clinical trial. And she said that, uh, the clinical trial is you'll get, uh, the standard chemotherapy. And the clinical trial is really about the immunotherapy. There were two different immunotherapies that they were going to give me at the same time. And I would take those once a month. So, um, when we left, I, we didn't even talk on the way home. It was such, it was like a horse kicked me in the chest. None of my kids were married. I wasn't going to see them get married. I wasn't going to see grandchildren. My husband was eventually going to be with another woman. I mean, all of these things were going through my mind and I was going to die before my mom and dad. So it was, um, I spiraled down. I, for two weeks, I was in a, just a deep, deep, deep, dark hole. The following, the first week, um, my church, they all gathered together and prayed over me. And, um, I mean, I was just still so scared and shaking that I couldn't even, I was, I was just, just not able to process everything that was going on. And then, um, the end of week two, I was in the shower and I was praying. And I told God, I said, look, I can't, I cannot carry this. And I said, I give up. I surrender. If it's my time to go, um, I'm okay with that. I trust you, but I cannot continue to worry about this. I cannot continue to carry this on my back. And the next day I was watching, um, sermons. I couldn't watch anything but sermons on television because everything else was, you know, it meant nothing. It was insignificant. And there was a preacher who said, if you want to learn how to be a better Christian, you should read the book of James. So I just immediately went and got my Bible and started reading the book of James. And the very first chapter changed everything. It was like the flip of the switch. I went from being in deep, deep, dark depression to actually starting to feel joy and my prayers changed, you know, everything changed after that. I slept in the night. Um, you know, I still had a few breakdowns here and there, but for the most part, you know, I just had, I had joy and happiness. And when we would go in and have the treatments, we would just go be bopping in my husband and I, and we were talking to everybody and, you know, making friends with everybody and, you know, just everything was great. Um, I had the treatments. I didn't have very many side effects with it. And in fact, um, it got to the point to where I literally had people to come up to me and say, are you sure they didn't like get your records mixed up? Are you sure that you have cancer? And I said, I'm pretty sure. And so I told my, uh, Dr. Pelster, my oncologist about that and she printed out the PET scan, um, you know, with all the cancer showing up on it. And I carried that with me to show people because I felt like I had to prove to people that yes, I do have cancer. You know, I might be, I might look okay. I might look like there's nothing wrong with me, but I have this cancer and I am dying. So that was, that was pretty hard. My treatment was chemotherapy. And then I had two trial immunotherapy drugs. The first treatment that I had, I really had no side effects. So it was a pump that I would wear home after I had taken, you know, the other treatment at the cancer center. And when I would go and have my pump unplugged the next day, I had extreme fatigue, could not get off the sofa, just extreme fatigue. But by noon on Friday, I was back to normal. And you know, my, I had treatment every other week. So, um, I really, I didn't have really any issues. I had some neuropathy, but, um, you know, for the most part I was, I was very lucky. Um, but on my second treatment, um, my liver enzymes went up to 300. So they could no longer give me the trial immunotherapy. And surprisingly I started, um, my treatment, my cancer diagnosis was November the 1st and I started my treatment on December the 5th. And by April the 12th, my scans showed no evidence of disease. I remember asking, um, if I could go ring the bell and my oncologist was, she said, oh my gosh, I didn't even think about that. She said, we, we just don't have people that can go ring the bell. So that was, that was a big deal to me. I was tickled to death to hear that. So I rang the bell and by then my liver enzymes had come down. So I was able to stay on and start the immunotherapy again for the trial. And that's when I started getting some really severe symptoms. Uh, I felt like I had a tourniquet at the top of each arm and that my arms were just going to explode off of my body. And the pain was so intense. I had to go and get, um, you know, IV pain medication. We were trying to, I mean, obviously it was from the immunotherapy, but it got to the point to where I just, I couldn't stand it anymore. So, um, Dr. Pelster and I both decided that it was time to just, you know, stop the immunotherapy. I stopped all of my treatment, the immunotherapy and also stopped chemo. Um, they really wanted me to stay on the 5FU, just, you know, precautionary to make sure that, you know, the cancer wouldn't come back. But I just did not want to do that. I felt like when I have cancer, I'll do treatment. And when I don't, I want a break. So I continued to get scans every three months. All of my scans were great. They were, great all the way up until January 9th of 2024. And the PET scan showed one tiny little spot that lit up in a lymph node in the middle of my chest, but there was nothing else. So, um, they did a biopsy just to confirm that it wasn't inflammation and it was not inflammation. It was indeed the cancer that had returned. We both felt like it wasn't really a reoccurrence. It was just maybe, you know, I didn't take treatment long enough to get that final little bit out, but we did an upper endoscopy as well, just to see if anything had changed. And the endoscopy showed that I had Barrett's esophagus and, um, they did a few biopsies and it was kind of inconclusive, but because of my history, they couldn't rule out, you know, the invasive adenocarcinoma being back. So I started, um, treatments again. I started on January the 29th of 2024. And, uh, this time I was not able to do any trial drugs. I did six treatments and we did another scan and another endoscopy and everything showed up to be clear. Barrett's esophagus was gone. The stomach was great. Um, the lymph node no longer lit up. So again, we were at no evidence of disease. So I did one more treatment and then I stopped and, um, you know, I continued to get scans. And then on August the 22nd, that same lymph node lit up again on the PET scan. And we did an endoscopy and one, you know, the surgeon came to me and said, I don't anticipate anything being wrong. Everything looks fantastic. I don't anticipate any issues whatsoever. But one of the four biopsies came back as cancer. He said there was a few floaters. They hadn't started really forming anything yet, but nevertheless, I had that. If I had that, I had more floating around. So I started treatment again on September the 9th and I have been, I'm still doing treatment now. I've had three so far. We're going to do two more and then we'll do another scan and another endoscopy and just, you know, see where we stand. So, um, it appears as though we're going to play whack-a-mole with this cancer, um, until it's just completely gone. They did a ton of biopsies and it was determined that it was H. pylori that caused it. And I had, you know, a CT scan like one year, almost to the date of my cancer diagnosis. And all that it showed was that I was positive for H. pylori and evidently I was antibiotic resistant and I didn't know it. And with H. pylori here, there's no follow-up. So the surgeon doesn't say, come back and we'll do a breath test or come back and we'll do another endoscopy to make sure that it's gone. It's just take the two antibiotics for 14 days and go on your merry way. So that's a little, it's a little disappointing. You know, I had no idea H. pylori could cause cancer in my stomach. Um, now that I know about it, you know, I've tried to tell everybody, you know, if you have H. pylori and you take medication, do not think that you got rid of it. Go back and get a follow-up test because I, you know, in less than a year, less than a year, I went from nothing showing up to a tumor in my stomach and 28 lymph nodes from my neck to my pelvis. Well, first and foremost, I would make sure that my primary care physician is the type of doctor that will listen to you and will understand that when you think something is wrong, that most likely there is something wrong and doesn't just, you know, shuck it off to menopause or allergies or, you know, just, you know, some of the many things that I've heard that other people, you know, got diagnosed with to start with. And then secondly, if you are tested positive for H. pylori, then, you know, make sure that after you take the treatment that you go back and you get checked again to make sure that it is gone because, you know, in this world of antibiotics given out for everything, the chances of you being antibiotic resistant are much greater. And then also, you know, just don't give up hope. You know, stay positive and just don't give up hope. Those first two weeks, I didn't think I would ever be able to say that, but cancer actually ended up being a blessing, believe it or not, for me and for my husband. Even when I thought that I was going to die, I saw so many beautiful things happen. You know, so many conversations that we had with people, so many people we were able to help through their journey. And, you know, just the change in perspective on life was invaluable. So, you know, would I want, you know, I wouldn't ask for cancer, but I also would not go back and change anything that I've been through. Even the reoccurrences, I wouldn't change those either because every time we went back to the cancer center, I just feel like it was because there was someone there that needed to talk to us, that we needed to help and be a part of their journey.