A young woman says she has been left facing a death sentence after her stage-four cancer was allegedly dismissed as piles because she looked 'young and healthy'.
Kasey Altman, 25, was diagnosed with a rare soft tissue cancer in October 2020 after she says that three doctors advised there was nothing wrong with her.
But she received a devastating blow after seeking clarification from a fourth doctor.
She was told she had rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer that usually affects children with just a five-year survival rate of 20 per cent.
The brave woman, who works for Google, has now taken to TikTok to share her experience.
Her account has since gone viral and she says she is going public in an effort to raise awareness of what she feels is gender bias within the medical field.
Kasey, from San Diego, California, US, said: “I was perfectly healthy, exercising daily, eating well, I’m a former college athlete so I take my health very seriously.
“Then I had these tumours pop up on my body, which was close to my anus, and no one would listen to me because I was young, healthy, and looked fine.
“The first doctor I saw didn’t give me an exam at all, she just refused to look at it. I walked in and said ‘this is what I think is a tumour on my body.'
“She dismissed me within two minutes and sent me on my way with a suppository which would help a haemorrhoid."
Finally, after being recommended to an obstetrician-gynecologist by her aunt, Kasey was closer to an answer but claims she still faced push-back.
She said: “The third doctor I went to was an OBGYN who looked at it and thought it was really weird.
“But she also assured me that surely I’m healthy and young and that it couldn’t be anything serious.
“I started to get emotional because no one was hearing me, and this was the third time it happened in three weeks.
“She was reluctant but did order a CT scan which then led to my diagnosis. So, I’m grateful for that but it was still considered an issue to get her to take me seriously.
"I honestly didn’t really know until after posting on TikTok how many people had a similar story to me."
Brave Kasey received the heartbreaking news that she had cancer after one month of crippling pain - so she began to replan her life around demanding chemotherapy.
The soft tissue sarcoma has reoccurred numerous times since November 2021 with Kacey set to face further chemotherapy.
She said: “I think the hardest pill to swallow emotionally is that when you’re in your 20s, all you do is plan for 30s and 40s and onwards.
“When you’re told you probably don’t have much time left, you have to make a pivot.
“For me, that was to try to find my purpose in this world because I had this sense of urgency that didn’t exist before.
“There’s a lot of innovative medicine and I have the luxury of having a parent advocate, my mother who’s literally the smartest person in the world.
“I’m at the point now where I’m advocating for myself now and taking an active role in my treatment. We're pursuing every option under the sun.”
