Texas, United States

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A woman from Texas claimed that she underwent "very intensive" chemotherapy sessions only to discover that she never had cancer in the first place. 

Lisa Monk went to the hospital in 2022 for stomach pains, assuming they were kidney stones, the New York Post reported. Tests showed two kidney stones and a mass on her spleen. She underwent surgery in January last year, and doctors removed the spleen successfully, later sent to pathology labs for testing. It tested positive for a rare and terminal form of cancer for the fourth time. 

Lisa, 39, was diagnosed with clear cell angiosarcoma, which is a type of cancer with a poor prognosis regardless of age and gender, the Mirror reported. Monk said, "It was a blood vessel type of cancer found in the spleen and told me that the most optimistic thing he could say was to give me 15 months." The news left Monk's family, including her two children, distraught.

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After her second round of "aggressive" chemotherapy sessions, Lisa lost all her hair, and she was left vomiting with silvery skin. She said, "It was a very dark time. I was writing goodbye letters and letters to the grandchildren I would never meet and the weddings I would never attend."

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However, doctors revealed that she never had cancer in the first place after a few months of chemotherapy. Monk recalled, "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."

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"She stops talking and has this look on her face. She turned to me and looked horrified and told me she needed to get the doctor and then ran out of the room. She 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," she continued.

"The doctor then told me that I never had cancer. [At that moment] I looked like I had cancer and I felt like I had cancer as I was vomiting, I was sick and my skin was silvery because of the chemotherapy. The doctor then congratulated me, which bothered me," she said.

The correct pathology report, which came in before the second round of chemotherapy began, was a month old by the time Monk found out. A year after the traumatic event, Monk is still struggling to pay hospital bills and is emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted. 

“I grieve for my kids for having to even go through something like this in their lives where they thought they were going to lose their mum. I can't take this away from them. I know on paper it only looks like a few months of my life but it felt like a lifetime," she added.

(With inputs from agencies)