Woman Thinks Her Exhaustion Is Just Jet Lag, Then Her Doctor Realizes It's Much More Serious
While traveling is usually one of the most exciting parts of life, Ella Dawson’s backpacking trip to Colombia was unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. During her stay, she started feeling exhausted, and the reality of her dream vacation was quickly replaced with concerns for her health. When Ella finally saw a doctor, she learned that her symptoms were much more serious than she realized.
Backpacking Trip
Ella, a 23-year-old graduate student from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, planned to visit Colombia for seven weeks on a once-in-a-lifetime backpacking trip. But things soon went awry for the student traveler.
Getting Worse
When she landed, Ella was exhausted, but she thought the she was just experiencing jet lag. She spent her first three days in Colombia sleeping in her room, trying to acclimate to the new country.
Acclimatizing
“I spoke to the staff at the hostel where I was staying at and they reassured me that, because Bogota has a high altitude, a lot of people struggle to acclimatize when they first arrive.” Ella said. “That, plus the jet lag, made perfect sense, so I didn’t worry too much.” Besides, these symptoms weren't exactly new for her.
It Started Earlier
Prior to her arrival in Colombia, Ella reported feeling tired at home and caught several colds. She saw a local physician not long before she left. The doctor took her blood pressure and told her she should check back in a week if she still wasn’t feeling well.
Too Tired To Move
In Colombia, her tiredness persisted throughout the week, and she developed strange bruises. When she tried to push through and explore Colombia, she was forced to rest after just a few minutes. This pushed Ella to visit a doctor — 5,000 miles away from her home.
Waiting For Results
When she did see a doctor, they took blood tests and sent the results to her regular physician in the U.K. to get his opinion. Days of her vacation passed, and Ella grew restless.
Things Turn Serious
While they waited for the results, Ella waited at home and searched for flights back to England. Four days later, her Colombian practitioner called her with urgent news, and she was rushed to the intensive care unit.
Getting A Diagnosis
Ella was soon transferred to a larger, more specialized hospital. This is where she received terrible news. The medical staff only spoke Spanish, so Ella only understood broken patches of the diagnosis they gave her.
Bombshell
Through a translation app, Ella learned she had leukemia. The cancer was so aggressive it was in 90% of her blood. “By the time I got my diagnosis, I was so unwell that I was expecting a bombshell,” Ella said. Now, she was entering a fight for her life.
Stuck In Colombia
Because she was so sick, it wasn’t safe for Ella to fly home. Luckily, her parents flew out to Colombia to be by her side as she processed the gravity of her situation. Treatment started immediately, with seven blood transfusions and five bags of plasma.
Making It Home
This stabilized her, giving her enough strength to make it through the 11-hour flight home. “I was put in first class, so I could lie down, but I was so exhausted that I slept the whole way,” Ella said. She dreaded what was coming next.
Another Diagnosis
Ella made it back to West Yorkshire and continued her treatments. Her U.K. doctors diagnosed her with acute lymphoblastic leukemia — a very rare form. Her body was overproducing blast cells, or immature white blood cells. Experts needed to try something serious.
Treatment In Isolation
They immediately started her on an intense chemotherapy regimen. “I was given a six-month treatment plan, which helped me to get my head around things,” she said. Unfortunately for Ella, the chemo decimated her immune system. and she spent her time isolated in the hospital.
An Aggressive Approach
A few months in, the doctors changed Ella's treatment to four types of chemotherapy for five days. “That was one of the worst times so far. My whole body was in excruciating pain. I’d get splitting headaches, blurred vision, and lost all my hair,” Ella said.
More Bad News
Just when the doctors thought the aggressive treatment would finally lead to remission, tests revealed that Ella relapsed. This continued bad news left her defeated, “I didn’t believe them at first as I felt absolutely fine,” she said.
Unanticipated Delays
By spring of 2020, coronavirus pandemic created stalls. “Doctors then decided to refer me for CAR-T treatment, but as it involved harvesting my blood cells and sending them away to be reprogrammed to fight the cancer, the coronavirus created some delays in getting them back,” she said. Ella was in limbo.
Time Was Crucial
The only thing she could do was try to be patient with this unexpected snag. “While I waited, doctors struggled to keep the cancer at bay. It was developing really fast,” she said. The summer would be make or break for her.
Innovative Treatment
Over the summer, Ella started CAR-T treatment at Manchester’s Christie Hospital. This involved removing her blood cells and then reprogramming them to fight cancer. Ella is still waiting for her results to see how this innovative treatment worked.
Looking For The Positive
"I also want anybody reading this who might be going through what I did to know that, while it sometimes feels impossible to stay positive, by keeping moving and finding the bright side where you can, you can get through," she said.
Learn The Signs
Somehow through the toughest days of her cancer journey, Ella found a passion. She started teaching others about the six most common signs of leukemia: fatigue, shortness of breath, fever and night sweats, bruising or bleeding, bone and joint pain, and repeated infections.
Pay Attention To Symptoms
Ella learned to trust her instincts and pay more attention to the signs her body gives her. Something that might seem harmless, could potentially be a warning sign for a more severe health problem. Once you recognize the physical signs of a serious illness, you can catch them earlier.
Didn't See The Signs
Victoria Price, for instance, was unaware that her health was compromised. Her entire Florida news team was working long hours, day and night, with no intentions of slowing down. If she wanted to keep her position, she'd have to keep her composure. In fact, she prided herself on it.
Huge Story
"As a journalist, it's been full throttle since the pandemic began," Price said on her Instagram. "We were covering the most important health story in a century, but my own health was the farthest thing from my mind." That is, until a viewer chimed in.
The Email
After a long day of newscasting, Price logged into her email to discover a message from a concerned viewer. Her words for Price were so jarring that the news anchor was quite concerned.
Similar Symptoms
The woman writing the email noted that Price's neck looked abnormally swollen. While she wasn't a doctor, the viewer told the news anchor she might want to visit a doctor and get her throat checked out. Of course, Price was skeptical.
No Symptoms Noticed
At first, Price hoped the viewer was mistaken. She wasn't feeling ill, after all. Sure, her throat was a bit sore, but her job was to speak all day long. A little hoarseness was expected. Still, she decided to give her doctor a call.
What's Up, Doc?
Price explained to her doctor that she had no symptoms other than a swollen throat. Her doctor informed her that, even though she was mostly asymptomatic, she should pay him a visit. Frightened by his foreboding words, Price set up an emergency appointment right away.
The Examination
Price showed up to her doctor's office, masked-up and ready for anything. He took a look at her thyroid and, after a few moments, confirmed her fears; Price had developed thyroid cancer in the middle of her neck. The news got even worse.
Visible Cancer
While cancer is typically a disease that develops within our bodies, there are certain types that can be seen from the outside. The most common of these visible cancers could be hiding right under your nose. Well... perhaps a little lower than that.
Most Common Symptoms
The most common symptoms of thyroid cancer include a swollen neck, pain up to the ears, and trouble swallowing. However, these can also be signs of a standard sore throat. Bad news kept piling up.
Spreading Quickly
Thyroid cancer can spread like wildfire. Once past the thyroid, it can spread far enough to cause irreversible damage. Unfortunately, Price's cancer had already begun to spread into her lymph nodes — but had it gone too far?
Glimmer of Hope
Thankfully, Price's doctor said she was lucky. Her cancer had just begun its attack on her lymph nodes, which means the viewer might have caught it just in time! However, there was still a chance of complications, as Price was going to need throat surgery.
Staying Positive
Thankfully, Price was very positive about her outcome. She was expected to only need one surgical treatment with no chemotherapy or additional procedures. To help calm her nerves, she decided to post about her diagnosis on social media and was instantly bombarded with questions!
Love and Concern
Price received tons of love and personal stories from her followers, plus an array of inquiries regarding her diagnosis. One user pointed out that they couldn't see the lump at all, to which Price responded with an insightful point.
Clearing Things Up
“It’s not super obvious unless you know what to look for," said Price, who then took a photo from a new angle. This helped her followers fully understand what the viewer saw — and what to look for themselves. So, how did Price's surgery go?
Battle Scars
On the day of her surgery, Price posted a photo of her self in recovery, enjoying a popsicle. “Aside from a little stiffness, soreness, and weakness, I’m feeling pretty great," she said. As she healed, Price continued sharing about her experience on Instagram. She even claims that the surgery was the easiest part!
Tough Recovery
"Prior to my thyroidectomy, a lot of people told me “the surgery is the easy part!” I didn’t understand that at first. Now I do." Price gave her followers a crash course about her months-long process of recovery, even sharing some not-safe-for-work photos. Her prognosis?
Recovering Gracefully
“It’s not a death sentence, but it’s a life sentence," says Price, who will forever be in recovery. "I’ll be on levo and need to balance these levels for the rest of my life... I may be scarred, but I ain’t scared.” Thankful to still be alive, Price has some words of advice.
Message of Hope
“Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. That’s the moral of the story. A little kindness went a long way for me. Don’t forget that your health is your wealth!” Her words have resonated all over the planet. People are finding ways to address their health, especially amidst the pandemic.
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