A 24-YEAR-old woman has shared how she was diagnosed with stage three cancer – and the first warning sign was her increased burping.
Bailey McBreen, a nurse, says she rarely burped, but two years ago, in October 2021, she started excessively belching – which she didn’t think much of.
Nurse Bailey McBreen was diagnosed with stage three cancer at age 24
McBreen said the first warning sign of her condition was her increased burping
Bailey McBreen said she would burp 5-10 times a day
But in February 2022, she also started suffering bad reflux, which doctors put down to anxiety rather than a sign of something more sinister.
It wasn’t until the following January that Bailey felt something was truly off – suffering “excruciating” pain and finding she was unable to go to the bathroom with no appetite.
Given her job, Bailey felt confident there was some sort of “obstruction” going on inside her body – but she had “no idea” it was actually a tumor until a CT scan found it growing in her colon.
“Never in a million years did I think that any vague symptom I had was actually stage three colon cancer,” Bailey, from Florida, told NeedToKnow.co.uk.
“The first sign something was wrong – although I didn’t know it at the time – was when I began excessively burping.
“I would burp 5-10 times a day.
“This was not normal for me. I actually rarely ever burped before and that is why I noticed how weird it was.
“But I honestly didn’t think too much of it.
“I never thought it could be linked to such a horrible disease.
“I was on a trip in Nashville in October 2021, and my fiancé, Caden, and I were joking that I was burping because of the elevation change.”
After her diagnosis in late January, she discovered the strange link with belching.
She said: “My tumor was higher in my transverse colon and was slowly causing a bowel obstruction.
“Because I never used to burp prior and then started excessively burping 5-10 times a day, that was a ‘new’ thing for me – and anything new to you is not normal and needs to be addressed.
“Excessive burping isn’t your textbook sign of colon cancer, but my oncologist told me that it was likely the start of my symptoms.
“I believe it’s linked to my new onset of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) that began only shortly after – within a month of developing excessive burping.
“GERD was a symptom in my case because my tumor was slowly causing a complete bowel obstruction.
“As a result, my food was not completely digesting and was getting ‘trapped’ above my tumor, causing my reflux and burping.”
When she was diagnosed, over a year after the burping began, Bailey was stunned.
She said: “Being told I have stage three colon cancer and a tumor obstructing my colon was an experience I never thought I would have.
“It truly was an out-of-body experience.
“I felt like I was sitting in the corner of the room watching myself be diagnosed.
“Time felt like it slowed down, and my heart rate sped up.”
A CT scan revealed Bailey had a tumor growing in her colon
The tumor was higher in her transverse colon and was slowly causing a bowel obstruction, Bailey revealed
