A nurse has told of the horror of receiving a devastating diagnosis of terminal breast cancer, despite a mammogram returning a normal result just weeks earlier.
Kristi Halpin, 33, from New Jersey, USA, “ignored” a series of strange symptoms that plagued her for months, including back pain, weight loss, strange bruises and fatigue.
The mother of one attributed the worrying problems to the deterioration she suffered after the birth of her son, Caiden, in October 2022, nine months before symptoms began.
He never expected that doctors would discover deadly tumors in both breasts, his spine, his lungs and his ribs.
“I was devastated and terrified,” she told her 38,000 TikTok followers of her diagnosis.
“I can’t leave my children (her husband and son) and have my baby grow up without me.”
Halpin’s ordeal began in early summer 2023, when he noticed he was losing weight unintentionally.
She assumed she had “just gotten lucky” and started losing the baby weight much sooner than expected.
Another symptom she remembered was fatigue, which she assumed was the result of a newborn keeping her up at night crying.
She told her TikTok followers that she had also noticed a lot of ‘random bruises’ all over her arms and legs, which she did not consider a “big deal” and thought they were causes of her dogs hitting her.
But then a new and alarming symptom appeared that was difficult to dismiss: agonizing back pain.
When the problem didn’t go away in August, he decided to see a chiropractor, which ultimately failed to relieve the pain.
Then, on the day of her son’s first birthday party in October 2023, the agony had become so unbearable that she couldn’t get off the bathroom floor after trying to bathe her baby.
Exasperated, she visited the local emergency room the next day, where doctors performed blood tests and discovered abnormalities.
Doctors believed she might be suffering from a gallbladder problem, but they sent her home and told her to return for a checkup a few weeks later.
During this time, Ms. Halpin discovered a strange change in the appearance of her nipple.
“I was taking a shower and I noticed that my nipple seemed to be pushed to the side, like it was inverted,” she said, adding that a lump seemed to have formed beneath the surface.
She had a mammogram, which showed no tumor. Radiologists assured him that the growth was probably a cyst.
Although breast cancer screening tests can detect cancers early, they are not perfect and some people may get a false negative result, meaning tumors are missed.
This is especially true for women with dense breasts, where cancerous lumps do not show up clearly on mammograms.
Dissatisfied with the radiologist’s conclusion, Ms. Halpin sought help from a breast cancer surgeon, who offered to perform a biopsy “just in case.”
Five days later, when the results came back, it was revealed that she had breast cancer. Further MRI scans revealed that it had spread to his bones, lungs and ribs.
“I couldn’t hear anything, I felt like time had stopped, I couldn’t see, I was absent for a couple of moments,” Halpin told his followers, recalling his diagnosis.
Halpin said his medical team recommended courses of chemotherapy and radiation therapy to shrink the tumors and prevent them from spreading to other parts of the body.
Breast cancer symptoms to look out for include lumps and swelling, dimpling of the skin, color changes, discharge, and a rash or crusting around the nipple.
In his most recent videos, he has revealed that so far the treatment keeps the disease under control.
However, his illness is classified as “terminal.”
Metastatic breast cancer occurs when cancer cells have spread from the breast to other areas of the body. This is also known as stage 4 breast cancer.
Around 55,000 women and 370 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the UK, according to Breast Cancer Now.
Meanwhile, approximately 300,000 new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in women in the United States each year.
The usual first symptom is a painless lump in the breast, although most are non-cancerous and are fluid-filled cysts, which are benign.
The first place breast cancer usually spreads is the lymph nodes in the armpit. This usually presents as a swelling or lump in the armpit.
However, skin changes, such as dimpling or rashes on the animal, can also be a warning sign.
In some cases, breast cancer can cause discharge and a rash or crusting around the nipple.
According to Cancer Research UK, more than 25 per cent of women will survive stage four breast cancer for five years or more after being diagnosed.
In recent years, doctors have expressed concern about the increasing number of cancer cases among young people.
Breast cancer rates in people aged 25 to 49 have increased by almost a fifth since 1990, according to Cancer Research UK.
Lifestyle habits, such as an unhealthy diet that causes weight gain and alcohol consumption, are believed to be driving the rise in cases.
This is because alcohol increases levels of estrogen in the blood and abnormally high levels of this hormone have been linked to breast cancer.
Being overweight also increases the risk of 13 types of cancer, including breast cancer.