While TikToker Emmalyn (@emm14762) was pregnant, she went to the emergency room 43 times, only to be told there was nothing wrong with her each time.
She was told that she was just being paranoid and experiencing anxiety and that she needed to stop coming to the ER.
But deep down, she had a nagging feeling that something was terribly wrong, even though no one believed her. Two weeks after giving birth, she was diagnosed with aggressive blood cancer and was told that she would be dead by Christmas.
She got pregnant in September. From the beginning, she was experiencing symptoms like severe exhaustion. She constantly slept through her alarms and was late for work. At 10 weeks pregnant, she had to quit her job because she just couldn’t function anymore.
At 14 weeks pregnant, her autoimmune disease took over her body. She had 53 ulcers in her mouth alone. They were also in her esophagus, stomach, and intestines.
“It was awful,” Emmalyn recalled. “I could not eat or drink anything. I lost nine pounds at 14 weeks pregnant. I got admitted to the hospital.”
“They couldn’t give me a feeding tube because they were scared they were going to perforate the ulcers and cause internal bleeding.”
She started experiencing brutal night sweats and fevers every night. All these symptoms were attributed to her autoimmune disease.
Then, she became extremely itchy all over her body, especially her hands and feet. The doctor ran the bloodwork but didn’t know why she was itchy.
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Next, she developed rashes on her body and was told that her autoimmune disease was progressing. She then came down with a persistent cough that wouldn’t go away.
In January, she began having shortness of breath. No matter how hard she tried to catch her breath, she still couldn’t breathe. The baby was pressing up against her lungs, and she had baseball-sized tumors lying on top of her heart and lungs.
“So, there was just no room for my lungs to expand, and that didn’t even get taken seriously until after I got admitted into the hospital after I gave birth,” said Emmalyn.
“They said I was asleep, and the nurses came running into my room and shook me. My oxygen saturation levels had dropped to like 76 or something like that.”
In the comments section, several other TikTok users described how their concerns were also brushed off by medical professionals.
“I feel this! I didn’t go that many times, but I probably would have if it weren’t for the overnight student doctor who caught it. She was very nice and saved my life because two old white guys told me it was just a headache, and she said you need to be tested for viral meningitis, and I had it,” commented one user.
“I refused to leave the hospital with my daughter for over eight hours until they admitted her. She was an infant with no apparent medical issues and a high fever. She had a Pseudomonas infection in her third kidney that had an ectopic ureter that connected to a pinpoint in another area. Doctor told me she could’ve died had I not fought for her,” shared another.
“I also got diagnosed with anxiety, and when I threw an absolute fit and begged for an MRI, I ended up having a super violent version of bone cancer. It was ridiculous that I had to turn my kids loose in the doctor’s office and refused to collect them until I got an MRI,” chimed in a third.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
