In a story about always listening to your body, a college student was originally diagnosed with “booze-induced heartburn” after going to the doctor for heartburn. As her symptoms got worse and seeing many doctors, it was determined she had a rare cancer called papillary renal carcinoma.
Georgia Ford, 20, is from Gloucetser, England, initially went to the doctor because she had heartburn. The doctor asked her about her drinking habits and she said she did drink a lot, the New York Post reported. She was a college student, so it happens. She was put on some stomach lining protection tablets at the time.
Ford then went home for a visit and she was not drinking while at home, however her symptoms lingered. The pills did not do the trick, so her doctor’s chalked it up to back pain she has been having since August 2020, which a hospital diagnosed as muscle spasms at the time.
In October 2021, her back pain started happening again and it hurt so bad she could hardly lie down, the New York Post reported. She also developed a cough so severe it would make her lose her breath and even cause her to vomit, which led to her not eating as much and losing weight.
While the symptoms kept adding up, the doctors still didn’t think it was anything too serious. Ford said, “I went to my GP about it a number of times. Every time we’d try something new and it wouldn’t work and I’d go back and we’d try something else,” the New York Post stated.
While the doctors thought it was all in her head, she eventually went to the emergency room after she could barely climb stairs or walk long distances because of her cough. Despite the fact she was even coughing up blood, the examiners found “cloudy patches” on her lungs and doctors assured her it wasn’t “anything life-threatening.”
In the end, it was life-threatening, as Ford finally booked an appointment with a private practice physician in November 2021, who diagnosed her with PRCC, which entails a tumor stemming from her kidneys that has metastasized to her lungs, liver, lymph nodes and bones.
By the time the cancer was detected, it had already spread throughout her body, which caused the other symptoms, like the mysterious cough. Ford would learn that her condition was “incurable,” the New York Post reported.
While her goal is to “live normally,” Ford does say she can’t help but speculate whether her prognosis would be different if doctors had caught the disease earlier.
