A mother-of-four was given months to live after initially mistaking her difficulty swallowing for a side effect of a weight loss diet.
Camilla Chapman was diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer nearly a year after experiencing symptoms of the disease.
The 40-year-old from Chichester, West Sussex, was devastated to learn in February that her cancer had spread to her lungs, liver, and lymph nodes and was inoperable.
“They told me there was nothing they could do because they couldn’t operate and it wasn’t curable. “I was only offered palliative chemotherapy,” she told The Independent.
The nursery business owner stated that she has “no hope” after receiving the diagnosis, but she is urging others not to dismiss seemingly minor ailments.
Ms Chapman noticed she was having difficulty swallowing her food in March of last year, a telltale sign of stomach cancer, but she dismissed it as a side effect of her new diet.
“I was on a low-calorie diet, and most of it was liquid, but one of the solid foods you could make was pancakes, which frequently got stuck in my throat. “I would have to drink water with them,” Ms Chapman explained.
“I ignored it, thinking it was just because I hadn’t been eating properly and had become lazy about chewing. “I thought my body was only used to swallowing liquids, not food,” she explained.
In June, she noticed a small lump beneath her jaw and went to see her doctor, but she didn’t mention her difficulty swallowing.
Ms Chapman was referred for an ultrasound scan, but doctors told her that “it’s normal to have one gland slightly larger than the other” and that “nothing was wrong”.
Ms Chapman’s scan, which revealed no signs of cancer, put her at ease for several months, until she found it even more difficult to swallow food.
“I noticed it more frequently, and it kept me awake at night. “I started having a gut feeling that something wasn’t quite right,” she explained.
By January, she was still having trouble swallowing food and decided to return to her doctor.
This time, Ms Chapman was referred for a blood test, and three weeks later, she had an endoscopy to examine her digestive tract and a biopsy.
“The endoscopy was awful and as soon as he said they were going to take biopsies, I knew they had found something,” she admitted.
Ms Chapman was scheduled for another CT scan a week later, in February. She was then devastated to learn that her cancer had spread to her liver, lungs, and lymph nodes on both sides of her oesophagus, rendering it inoperable.
Cancer Research UK reports that more than 6,000 Britons are diagnosed with stomach cancer each year.
Symptoms include difficulty swallowing, weight loss, stomach pain, feeling full after eating small amounts, feeling sick, and fatigue due to low red blood cell counts.
Stomach cancer can also spread to the lymph nodes, a network of tubes and glands in the body that filters fluids and fights infection. This may cause lymph nodes to feel hard or swollen. Swollen lymph nodes in the chest can make swallowing difficult.
Ms Chapman said she has only been offered palliative chemotherapy, which is a type of treatment that helps people live longer and more comfortably even if they are unable to be cured.
She claimed she had no other options on the NHS and was desperate to find an alternative.
“I don’t want to go through chemotherapy; I have four young boys and want to be able to take them to the park. “I don’t want to spend my remaining time in sickness,” she said.
Ms Chapman is now warning others not to ignore any unusual symptoms and to seek medical attention.
“Difficulty swallowing is a symptom of stomach cancer, but because I didn’t have any other symptoms, such as acid reflux, I dismissed it,” she told me.
“It is easy to dismiss it can be just a small change, maybe how you swallow or sound, but I would tell anyone who had the same symptoms as me to just go and get it checked out,” according to her.
Approximately 65% of people with stage one cancer are expected to live for five years or more after diagnosis.
However, there are no five-year survival statistics for those with stage four cancer, which means the disease has spread to distant parts of the body, according to Cancer Research UK.
Instead, only 20% of people with stage 4 stomach cancer live for a year or more after being diagnosed.
