Woman mistook rare cancer for an allergic reaction when her face swelled

SWNS

A woman who thought she was having an allergic reaction when her face swelled up was diagnosed with a one-in-a-million cancer.  Melinda Nelson, 35, had just completed a triathlon when she started to notice her face was looking rounder and she was losing muscle from her legs.  Her hands, feet and stomach swelled too and Melinda thought she could have been having an allergic reaction but her tests came back normal.  Melinda went for a scan which revealed she had a 24cm tumour - the size of an American football - on her adrenal gland.  It was secreting too much cortisol and causing Cushing's syndrome and Melinda's symptoms.

Transcript

00:00Hi, my name is Melinda and my body is experiencing stage four adrenal cortical carcinoma, which

00:08is a rare cancer that affects one in a million people.

00:11I started experiencing symptoms in early 2021.

00:16In April of 2021, I had participated in my first triathlon.

00:19I mentioned that because I was definitely like in the best shape of my life, like right

00:23before I started having symptoms, which I think made them very obvious to me.

00:29I was in California when I started really noticing symptoms, house sitting for a friend.

00:34I thought it was allergies at the time.

00:36My face felt really swollen.

00:38My legs were swelling.

00:39My hands were swelling.

00:40I made an appointment with an allergist that I could find.

00:43So I went in in person and she was actually the first one to tell me that I had really

00:49high blood pressure.

00:50Before that, I had no idea.

00:51So I was like, well, that's weird.

00:54Okay.

00:55And then she prescribed me for my face, like a hydrocortisone cream.

01:00So when I talked to my primary physician, or it was a doctor at the same practice, she

01:03said, it sounds like allergies and, um, here's what I would recommend.

01:08So I started taking a couple of things for that.

01:10I had been plant-based and gluten-free for a long time.

01:14So pretty much just eating a plant-based whole foods diet, whole foods, plant-based diet.

01:18I started reaching out to doctors in Florida and making in-person appointments because

01:22I wanted them to see me.

01:23Now at this time I was like full blown Cushing's, really big face, really big tummy.

01:27So I went into the allergist and immunologist and they ended up, I think they started me

01:32with like a PA and then they read like my notes and they were like, no, no, no.

01:37The day I went in also, I think my stomach was really distended and she said, I'm not

01:41comfortable with this.

01:42I feel like something's going on with your liver.

01:44I really want to send you for a scan.

01:45So I went in for the scan and like two days later, I think the allergist called me back

01:49into her office and said, um, I had a huge mass on my adrenal gland that was the size

01:54of a grapefruit.

01:55I thought at the time it turned out to be the size of a football once they cut me open.

01:59The Mayo Clinic was, they were the ones to like officially say, we believe this is, you

02:05know, the big C, but we also believe it's ACC specifically.

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