{"id":361577,"date":"2025-12-21T09:10:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T09:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/361577\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T09:10:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T09:10:22","slug":"it-took-5-years-to-get-a-cancer-diagnosis-heres-what-it-taught-me-about-advocating-for-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/361577\/","title":{"rendered":"It Took 5 Years to Get a Cancer Diagnosis. Here\u2019s What It Taught Me About Advocating for Myself"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 31 years old, Jackie Garcia had surgery to remove a nearly 20-pound tumor, which has left lasting effects on her body and quality of life. Below, she shares her five-year journey to a cancer<\/a> diagnosis she believes was delayed by medical bias and second-guessing\u2014and a message for other plus-size women of color. Here is her story as told to Emilia Benton.<\/p>\n

In 2017, when I was 26 years old, I started experiencing unusual symptoms, including cold and flu-like symptoms just about every month, as well as frequent, severe headaches and nausea. I would power through the work day and then take ibuprofen or Tylenol in the afternoons and evenings before passing out from exhaustion on the couch. Even with a supposedly \u201cgood night\u2019s sleep,\u201d I felt so fatigued and never woke up feeling refreshed. I would go on to feel this way for the next five years, during which time I struggled to get answers after visiting multiple doctors and other practitioners.<\/p>\n

During that time, I also started to rapidly gain weight. I gained about 100 pounds within a year and a half, which was alarming, especially since my appetite had also waned and I could never seem to finish a full meal. This weight gain was an even bigger mystery to me because until then I had always been very active, working out at least six days a week, doing things like running, weight training, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts. I also lived with my sister, who is a registered dietitian, and she would often cook healthy meals for us. So I just chalked up my symptoms to work-related stress.<\/p>\n

But as my symptoms worsened, my abdomen also hardened and expanded in size. I felt pressure in my pelvic floor, and my periods became painful and irregular, with intense cramping, nausea, and cold sweats. I was also getting rashes on my face and began having numbness in my legs when I would stand up. I figured this was all a result of the weight gain and thought maybe it was now my new \u201cnormal.\u201d But I now understand none of these symptoms were normal at all, because I eventually learned I had a nearly 20-pound tumor that was pressing on my pelvic floor and spine, basically crushing my muscles and cutting off circulation to my organs.<\/p>\n

Addressing underlying biases<\/p>\n

For five years, I tried fruitlessly to get answers. I had always been good about going for my annual physical and well-woman exams and going to see my primary care doctor when I needed to. I brought up my symptoms to my PCP, and despite knowing how active I\u2019d always been, she simply told me I needed to lose weight, walk more, and eat healthier snacks. I asked her to touch my hardened stomach, and she told me there was nothing there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 31 years old, Jackie Garcia had surgery to remove a nearly 20-pound tumor, which has left lasting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[687,178346,97,259],"class_list":{"0":"post-361577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-gender-bias","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}