A woman who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 34 has shared the five symptoms she ignored.
Linda Chavez, now 35, found out she had a type of lung cancer called Metastatic Bronchial Carcinoma, and by the time it was diagnosed it was stage four, and thus terminal.
She claimed that over the years doctors consistently mistook her symptoms for less serious conditions.
Chavez, who is also wife and mother-of-two, has since taken to TikTok (@theterminalcancershow) where she has been sharing updates about her health journey as well as raising awareness about the disease.
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In one video, she opened up about the five symptoms she experienced before she was diagnosed.
Persistent coughing
Chavez stated she ‘had a cough for years’ which she ignored.
She demonstrated with a light cough how minor it was to begin with, before saying: “Eventually it was deeper, it felt very painful and it felt piercing in my chest.
“Please do not ignore a persistent cough.”
Pain in her bones
Another symptom experienced by Chavez was that she regularly had pulsating pain in her bones.
She said it constantly felt as if she had just stubbed her toe, except in all the bones in her body.
Part of the reason that Chavez’s stage four cancer is terminal is because it is no longer localised to her lungs and has spread around her body.
Constant headache
Chavez explained that one of the consistent symptoms she had to deal with was a headache.
She said she woke up 'every single morning' with a headache for over nine months, often taking medication to deal with the pain.
While a headache isn't a common symptom of lung cancer specifically, in Chavez's case, the disease had also spread to her brain, as well as her spine, lymph nodes and adrenal gland.
Fatigue
The 35-year-old said she had been ‘exhausted beyond belief’.
This eventually affected her breathing as she explained: “I literally had to take shallow breaths due to pain I was feeling every time I was inhaling or exhaling.”
Nausea
The final symptom Chavez said she experienced was ‘nausea’, stating that she ‘was definitely very very nauseous towards getting diagnosed’.
She went on to say: “It was due to the brain cancer, apparently a lot of my brain mets (metastasis), are on my right frontal lobe which controls like hunger, cravings, nausea, and all that.”
Chavez has since raised over $40,000 in a fundraiser on GoFundMe organised by her brother-in-law.
In the last update on the page, her brother-in-law revealed she had developed ‘leptomeningeal dissemination disease’, which is when the cancer has travelled to the cells of the fluid in her brain.
Due to this Chavez had been discharged from hospital as of 3 December for ‘labs, procedures, and a rigorous new infusion regime’.
The update read: “It's no doubt the kids and family, friends, and even social media followers breathe life into Lin and her fight.
“To those who know Lin, she's a fighter through and through and won't go down without fighting the good fight.”
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact Macmillan’s Cancer Support Line on 0808 808 00 00, 8am–8pm seven days a week.
Michael Slavin