A super-fit young woman has shared the first warning sign after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Holly Shawyer was training for a marathon and at the peak of her physical health when a sudden stomach ache led her to her local hospital’s emergency room last May.
The now-35-year-old said doctors believed she was suffering a stomach ulcer, and scanned her heart and shoulder due to pain there too.
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Finding nothing, she was referring to a gastrointestinal specialist, who ordered a CT scan – which found the presence of a 10cm cyst on the tail of her pancreas.
Presumed benign, it took several months of testing before doctors confirmed the prognosis of stage one cancer.
“Getting diagnosed in my 30s felt like a huge pause button was slapped on my life,” Holly, a math teacher from North Carolina, US, told Need To Know.
“I was in great health before this.
“I am a runner and was actually training for a marathon through all of this.
“I had to drop out of my marathon the day of due to pain from my cyst in December.
“I have always been pretty health conscious – watching what I eat and regularly exercising.
“I rarely got sick, maybe once every few years I would get a stomach bug.”
In December 2023, Holly’s cyst was removed and a biopsy found the presence of cancer.
The young woman was “mentally prepared” after earlier lab results had indicated a 33% likelihood of that being the case.
She says she had “a lot of hope” due to the remarkably early diagnosis – doctors told her stage 1 was an unlikely diagnosis with pancreatic cancer – and that her prognosis was thought to be good.
She began chemotherapy at the end of January, attending every other week for 12 rounds, which culminated in June.
She said: “Each time I went I had one day of in-person infusion and then I was sent home with a 46-hour portable drip attached to my port that got disconnected two days later.
“While I was mentally prepared for my diagnosis, I don’t think there’s any way I could have mentally prepared for how this diagnosis and chemotherapy would impact me.
“It was really hard sometimes to be going through this physically taxing treatment and then on top of it feel like I was missing out on life.
“I had friends get engaged, get pregnant, get promoted, and give birth in the course of my treatment and it was really difficult navigating feeling happy for/celebrating them and feeling sad for myself because I had no idea when I might get to experience those things.”
As of 19 July, Holly is officially cancer-free and finished with her treatment – though she remains under monitoring, and says life isn’t quite the same as pre-diagnosis.
She said: “Just because someone is ‘cancer free’ or done with treatment doesn’t mean their life automatically goes back to normal.
“I still have many side effects from chemo affecting me even a month later, such as my hair falling out and nerve issues in my hands and feet.
“When you’re going through treatment it’s like you’re in survival mode and all you can focus on is getting through the physical aspect.
“Now that I’m done with treatment, I feel like I can finally start to process the emotional and mental toll this has taken on me.
“My biggest takeaway from all of this is just to take advantage of the time you have while you know you have it.
“Even before my diagnosis, I was travelling a lot and checking off a lot of things on my ‘bucket list’, but now I feel an even greater desire to not waste a single moment.”
Holly also encourages other people to be their “own biggest advocate” when it comes to their health – saying she had to push for speedier appointment times, which may have helped with her positive outcome.
