Texas: In a heart-wrenching turn of circumstances, a 39-year-old woman in the US, a mother of two, underwent aggressive chemotherapy after she was told that she had 15 months to live due to a rare form of blood vessel cancer, known as angiosarcoma. It was only after she underwent the terrifying ordeal that Lisa Monk, a higher education worker, found out that she never had cancer in the first place.
Monk was told last year that she had clear cell angiosarcoma on her spleen, reported The Independent. "When the doctor told me it was cancer I went into shock. The diagnosis was horrible and [they] told me it was terminal,” she said, after experiencing stomach pain and a scan showing a mass in her body along with kidney stones. The woman did not disclose her diagnosis to her children, opting to fight the cancer.
Monk then tried to leave memories for her children, including writing messages for the future weddings she would miss and the grandchildren she would not be able to meet. She underwent her first chemotherapy in March 2023 in Texas, after which left her with "silvery skin". She also suffered hair loss, constant vomiting and other side effects.
In a shocking development, her pathology report was correctly read after her second round of chemotherapy, which revealed that she never had cancer. "I saw the nurse practitioner first and she just asked me about my symptoms and she was scrolling on the computer while she was talking to me. All of sudden she just stops talking and has this look on her face,” she said.
According to Monk, her nurse was "completely horrified" by the revelation and rushed to get the doctor. "he left me alone for about 15 minutes and the doctor came back in. He said a lot of medical lingo to me and then told me I didn’t have cancer,” Ms Monk told the Daily Mail. The doctor told Monk she never had cancer, but a mere "blood vessel activity".
"I was confused as they were acting like it was a bad thing. I just thought [if I didn’t have cancer] it meant the chemotherapy was working," she said. The initial report had been passed onto the hospital, but they had requested to carry out their own tests due to a policy. Monk said that the hospital's test had come back clear but authorities failed to check it until the April appointment, by the time which she had already undergone one round of chemo.
“I had had chemotherapy during this time and they could have told me a month earlier and I would have avoided the second round of chemotherapy if they had bothered to read their own pathology report,” she said, adding that she was "angry" about all the things she and her family endured following the false diagnosis, which ruined her health.
“Financially we’re still paying medical bills. Cancer is expensive and I couldn’t get any of my bills dismissed. And there’s the emotional trauma too. It was a very dark time. I was writing goodbye letters and letters to the grandchildren I would never meet,” Monk added.
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