KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 18 — A nurse in the intensive care unit is now fighting lung cancer which was initially misdiagnosed as long Covid.
Brogan Williams from Wolverhampton, UK, told Daily Mail that she was in remission from breast cancer when she experienced back pain and shortness of breath in October 2020.
She was unable to make a face-to-face appointment due to the pandemic.
When the 33-year-old mother of a girl finally went to the emergency department with chest pains, she was diagnosed with Covid Lung, a symptom associated with Long Covid.
She never tested positive for the virus.
It was not until the end of June this year that Williams was sent for a scan and a biopsy when her oncologist discovered a lump in her neck.
A CT scan in July found cancer and fluid on her lungs in which Williams now believes that the lack of in-person appointments is to be blamed for doctors not catching the disease sooner.
Williams said when she tried to seek help initially, doctors were dismissive of her.
“The last three weeks have been pretty rough. I’ve been in remission since October last year but have been going back to GPs and oncologists with pains in my chest, but they told me that I was too young for cancer to come back.’
Williams had first been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer at 30 when her husband noticed that her nipple was inverted.
In October 2020 while in remission, Williams had complained to doctors and oncologists about pains in her chest.
In February this year, Williams had an MRI of her spine, which came back clear.
“But actually, if they’d done a scan of my chest, they would have seen that there was cancer in my lungs at that point,” she said.
“Now it’s in both lungs and is very advanced. It’s in my neck and I have two spots on my liver which they can’t rule out as cancer too,” she added, noting that her condition had been missed at every opportunity.
Williams, who is now being cared for by her mother Lorraine, said the family was trying to keep it as normal as possible and divert their minds from what the prognosis is and think of what it could be.
She now wants to raise awareness for the type of cancer she has which is classified as metastatic breast cancer even though it is in her lungs.
She has also begun writing letters to her five-year-old daughter, Freya, to read at pivotal moments in her life.
Her loved ones had helped her set up a GoFundMe page so that Williams can take her daughter and her husband on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Disneyland Florida.
