US woman, 39, told she never had cancer after undergoing aggressive chemotherapy

Woman says she was left with ‘silvery skin’ and could not stop vomiting due to harsh treatment

A mother of two, who endured aggressive chemotherapy and was told she had just 15 months to live, has now found out that never had cancer in the first place.

Lisa Monk, a higher education worker, was told she had angiosarcoma, a rare form of blood vessel cancer, on her spleen early last year, reported the Daily Mail.

She had stomach pain and a scan showed a mass in her body along with kidney stones, the report said. “When the doctor told me it was cancer I went into shock. The diagnosis was horrible and [they] told me it was terminal,” she said.

Ms Monk said she kept the severity of the diagnosis from her children. She said she did not tell them she was given just a little more than a year by her doctors but maintained that she was going to try to fight it.

What ensued was her efforts to leave memories for her children, like letters which she wrote for them with messages for the future weddings she will miss and the grandchildren she will never be able to meet.

The first round of chemotherapy began in March last year for the resident of College Station in Texas, which made her lose all her hair. She was also left with “silvery skin” and “could not stop vomiting”.

It was only after her second round of chemo that her pathology report was correctly read and disclosed there was no cancer to begin with in her body.

“I saw the nurse practitioner first and she just asked me about my symptoms and she was scrolling on the computer while she was talking to me. All of sudden she just stops talking and has this look on her face,” she said.

The nurse then turned to Ms Monk, looking “completely horrified” and dashed to get the doctor.

“She left me alone for about 15 minutes and the doctor came back in. He said a lot of medical lingo to me and then told me I didn’t have cancer,” Ms Monk told the Mail, and “just blood vessel activity”.

“The doctor then told me that I never had cancer. [At that moment] I looked like I had cancer and I felt like I had cancer as I was vomiting, I was sick, and my skin was silvery because of the chemotherapy.”

Ms Monk said she was initially in shock. “I was confused as they were acting like it was a bad thing. I just thought [if I didn’t have cancer] it meant the chemotherapy was working.”

According to The Mirror, the initial report that had diagnosed her with cancer had been passed onto the hospital but due to their policy, they had requested that they carry out their own tests. Ms Monk said the hospital’s test had come back clear but they allegedly did not check their report until the April appointment and she already had undergone one round of chemotherapy by then.

“I had had chemotherapy during this time and they could have told me a month earlier and I would have avoided the second round of chemotherapy if they had bothered to read their own pathology report,” she said.

A year on, she is still “angry” about everything she and her family endured due to a false diagnosis, which ruined her health and “cooked” her insides.

“Financially we’re still paying medical bills. Cancer is expensive and I couldn’t get any of my bills dismissed. And there’s the emotional trauma too. It was a very dark time. I was writing goodbye letters and letters to the grandchildren I would never meet,” Ms Monk said.