Mum, 35, shares 'very refined' lung most cancers indicators she attributed to emphasize. (Image: TikTok @ashleybreatheforward)

Ashley doesn’t appear to be a typical lung cancer affected person. The 35-year-old by no means smoked, she has all the time been comparatively wholesome, she even frequently ran marathons and took part in martial arts.

However, the lethal situation first reared its ugly head in 2020 when she began experiencing “very subtle” indicators like bother swallowing and dry throat.

Unfortunately, it took years of physician visits, journeys to the emergency room, and numerous deteriorating symptoms for her to get the right analysis.

By the time she was lastly recognized with lung cancer, her entire physique was so swollen that she may barely transfer.

“I looked [the doctor] in the eyes and said, ‘If you send me home, I'm going to die’,” Ashley recalled in a TikTok video.

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Taking to the social media platform, the social employee shared her first indicators which included bother swallowing, choking a bit extra when she ate, and modifications in her throat.

She mentioned: “My throat just felt weird. I wouldn't say it was a sore throat. But [when] I was drinking or chugging water, my throat felt a little dry.

“Food felt differently as it went down my throat. There was saliva in the back of my mouth.”

At first, the 35-year-old attributed these signs to anxiousness and stress brought on by the pandemic, her younger youngsters and the divorce she was going by way of.

However, Ashley’s signs didn’t cease there. A yr later, she went to pressing care with signs like cough and a headache, however she was solely examined for Covid.

The time saved passing however Ashley’s cough and different signs weren’t going anyplace. She mentioned: “It was affecting me at work. It was affecting conversations.

“I'm a fast talker. At this time, I was noticing I had to slow down [and] take breaths in between words or sentences.”

She even tried to deal with her cough and “went through bags of cough drops”. “I probably spent hundreds of dollars on cough drops during this time,” Ashley mentioned.

Unfortunately, increasingly signs saved becoming a member of the ever-growing listing of issues she was dealing with.

Eventually, she began wheezing, which docs prescribed her an inhaler for.

Just a few months later, Ashley's cough began altering and it turned drier, persistent and extra intense.

Cancer indicators and signs to look out for. (Image: Express.co.uk)

That’s when her docs determined to do a chest x-ray which got here again regular as a result of the tumour was hiding behind her coronary heart, she defined.

“If they would have ordered me a CT or a PET scan, it would have shown up on that,” she mentioned.

Five months earlier than her analysis, Ashley observed she lost a lot of weight and saved searching for the assistance of docs which lead nowhere.

Her medical staff saved saying: “It's all stress. You're going through a divorce, you're working in healthcare, there's a pandemic, you have young kids. Maybe go see a therapist.”

As her signs simply saved worsening, Ashley admitted herself to the emergency room, asking for assist, the place docs finally recognized her with pneumonia.

The mum was given antibiotics and admitted to a hospital however this didn’t remedy her signs.

At this time, she wasn’t capable of put her footwear on, decide up her youngsters or transfer. Her total physique began swelling.

She ended up within the emergency room once more the place she was given extra antibiotics for her pneumonia and despatched house.

When she bought house, she spoke to her girlfriend, who informed her to return to the emergency room and never go away till she bought a analysis. “This saved my life,” Ashley mentioned.

They discovered blood clots in her leg and lungs. At this level, she was decided to get solutions.

“It turns out if I didn't start treatment when I did, I would have had under five months to live,” Ashley mentioned.

Since then, the mum has had one among her lungs eliminated and she or he is present process an eight-month course of chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy.