Doctors said it was a panic attack. But something was festering inside

When Courtney Liniewski started to suffer from a sharp stabbing pain in her back, she blamed herself for being ‘lazy’ and ‘sitting down for too long’ at her desk job.

‘I just thought I wasn’t moving enough and I was being lazy,’ Liniewski, 34, told the Daily Mail. ‘I was sat down a lot for my job and I was at my desk most of the day.’ 

But a month later, in January 2022, she felt a ‘loud bang’ in her head and noticed her face was drooping. A doctor, however, assured her that she was fine and chalked it up to a migraine and a panic attack.

So, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, mother-of-two tried to carry on as normal for the rest of the month despite other strange symptoms. 

‘I started losing hearing in my left ear every night and my nose was always running and it wouldn’t stop,’ she told the Daily Mail.

‘I was just experiencing weird symptoms but nothing consistent and nothing that added up that something was really wrong.’

She also experienced extreme fatigue, occasional night sweats and significant weight loss, blaming the latter on recently starting weight loss drugs.

But she clung to the doctor’s assurances that she was perfectly healthy – and little did she know, there was something else festering beneath the surface.

It wasn’t until she was on vacation in Mexico in February 2022 that she realized something was terribly awry.

She suffered neck swelling so bad she looked as though she was having an allergic reaction. 

‘I started having difficulty breathing that week – I couldn’t walk up or down the stairs and I had a lot of chest pain,’ she said.

Upon returning from her trip, she went to the hospital where scans revealed stage 3B follicular lymphoma, an aggressive and fast-growing type of blood cancer.

Scans also showed a grapefruit-sized tumor in her chest, indicating the cancer had spread to the chest cavity from her lymph nodes, the bean-shaped glands that help filter fluid from the body, where the cancer normally starts.

‘I was hysterical for most of that time, I did a lot of crying and panicking,’ she said. ‘I was thinking the worst.’

But she believes her vacation saved her life.

‘My immune system was clearly reacting to travel or stress. I’ve always been prone to getting sick when I travel, but this time it was like my body finally showed me something. The lump was about 1.6 inches, and it is what led to my diagnosis,’ she told the outlet.

‘Without it, I wouldn’t have met the criteria typically associated with my type of cancer. I don’t fit the demographic.’

Follicular lymphoma – a type non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – is normally diagnosed in people who are about 60, although patients are roughly equal in terms of male or female.

It is considered incurable because it typically comes back after treatment. About 60 to 70 percent of patients experience a return of the cancer, according to a 2016 study.

It tends to recur because some cancer cells can survive treatment, even if they are not detected on scans.

About 15,000 patients are diagnosed with the cancer every year, most at stage three, when the disease has already spread to other areas of the body.

It is diagnosed late because it is considered a slow-growing cancer with few initial symptoms. Over time, however, the cancer can advance to the fast-growing stage before it is diagnosed, as in Liniewski’s case.

In cases where the cancer has spread, the American Cancer Society says 58 percent of patients survive for five years after their diagnosis. 

Liniewski did six rounds of chemotherapy in six months, before being told in July 2022 that she was in remission. She now has scans every three months, but the cancer is currently still at bay.

‘It was a great feeling that they told me when I was cancer-free but I was still also scared,’ she told the Daily Mail.

‘Due to how aggressive the cancer was, it’s basically guaranteed to come back at some point, but I haven’t required any additional treatment since.’

Now, she’s urging other people who experience unusual symptoms to push for a diagnosis.

‘Cancer care has come a long way and people are surviving cancer significantly more than they used to,’ she said.

‘I think people should know that it’s okay to advocate for yourself if something is wrong.’