Susete Isabel, 40, could be forgiven for believing that the symptoms that plagued her at night were due to menopause.
For months, she tossed and turned suffering from hellish night sweats, leading to days plagued by crippling fatigue.
Night sweats and fatigue are, indeed, two of the most recognized symptoms of the hormonal change that can occur in a woman between 40 and 55 years old.
Susete Isabel, 40, from Canada, was diagnosed with stage four follicular lymphoma after mistaking her symptoms for early menopause, drinking and overworking.
Tragically, Susete’s assumption turned out to be wrong.
In fact, the mother of two children suffered from advanced stage blood cancer.
Susete, from Canada, was otherwise healthy when she began experiencing symptoms in September 2023.
It wasn’t just the night sweats, she also noticed a sudden weight loss and an unusually swollen abdomen.
She attributed the bloating to alcohol consumption and her rapid weight loss to overwork.
But when she endured four days of “excruciating” pain under her ribs, Isabel was rushed to the emergency room, where she was diagnosed with stage four lymphoma, a type of blood cancer that had spread throughout her body. .
The mother of two is now urging her followers not to ignore the symptoms. “Enjoy today because tomorrow is not promised,” she wrote on Instagram.
After the diagnosis, it became clear that the persistent pain in his groin, neck and armpit were actually signs that the cancer was damaging his lymph nodes, glands that filter substances from the body.
Now, Isabel is urging her followers not to ignore the symptoms, even if they seem mild.
“Don’t ignore what your body is trying to tell you,” he wrote in instagram. “When the shit hits the fan, you’ll have no choice but to kill time.”
Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymph nodes, the body’s disease-fighting network, which includes the spleen, bone marrow, lymph nodes, and thymus.
It can occur anywhere in the body, but usually the first sign is swollen lymph nodes around the neck.
Other symptoms, according to the Mayo Clinic, include abdominal pain or swelling, chest pain, cough, shortness of breath, persistent fatigue, fever, night sweats, and unexplained weight loss.
In Isabel’s case, scans revealed that she had an enlarged spleen and lymph nodes.
The two main forms are Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).
The NHL affects around 80,000 people each year in the United States and 14,000 in the United Kingdom. It kills about 20,000 people in the United States and almost 5,000 in the United Kingdom.
Hodgkin lymphoma is less common, affecting about 8,500 Americans and 2,100 Britons. It is responsible for about 900 deaths a year in the United States and 310 in the United Kingdom.
Ms. Isabel was diagnosed with a form of NHL called follicular lymphoma, which grows from the B lymphocytes in white blood cells.
These are usually responsible for producing antibodies to fight diseases.
According to the Lymphoma Research Foundation, follicular lymphoma “is not typically considered curable, but rather is classified as a chronic disease.”
“Patients with this form of lymphoma can live many years.”
Isabel’s cancer spread to several organs, including her bone marrow. She endured six rounds of chemotherapy, which she says “scared me to the bone.”
“That was scary,” Isabel wrote on Instagram about her diagnosis. “They told me it had spread everywhere, in the groin, the armpits (upper part of the neck), the upper and lower part of the diaphragm and even in the bone marrow.”
‘Only God knows how long I was walking around so sick without knowing it. Oblivious to all my symptoms.’
Mrs. Isabel endured six rounds of chemotherapy, which she said “scared me to the bone.” She finished her treatments on March 1 and is awaiting scans to see if any cancer remains.
In a February post, he said about 85 percent were gone.
If the cancer has been eliminated, Isabel said she will receive maintenance chemotherapy injections every three months for the next two years to prevent the tumors from growing back.
Isabel now focuses on raising awareness about the symptoms on her Instagram account, which has more than 200,000 followers.
“Enjoy today because tomorrow is not promised,” he wrote.