When Cristina Speirs stopped feeling tired she just attributed it to her healthy lifestyle.
Source: Facebook
CRISTINA Speirs was a healthy college student. She exercised six days a week, taught yoga and drank plenty of water.
The self-described "health freak", now 22, stopped feeling tired
and started getting up frequently during the night to go to the bathroom
- but she just attributed this to her healthy lifestyle."I had a lot of energy. I wasn't sleeping. ... I was always on the go. I was never tired," Ms Speirs told ABC News .
At an annual check-up in 2012 Ms Speirs, who lives in New York State, found out her potassium levels were low but her blood pressure was extremely high. Doctors couldn't work out what was wrong.
A cardiologist gave her the all-clear, so her mother suggested she get her kidneys tested.
A renal sonogram showed there was an abnormality - the technician suspected she had one giant kidney instead of two and ordered her to have an MRI immediately.
It was then that doctors figured out what was wrong.
Her kidneys were fine but Ms Speirs had a stage 2 cancerous tumour "the size of an orange" on her adrenal gland, which was producing hormones that were keeping her awake.
"I was in complete shock," she said. Ms Speirs called her parents to tell them she needed surgery. "Then, I got so upset honestly. I had no idea where this came from."
The surgery was complicated because her operation was scheduled when Hurricane Sandy hit. Many patients' surgeries were cancelled, but Ms Speirs' surgeon Dr William Inabnet fought hard to go ahead with the planned operation.
Dr Inabnet removed all of the "sticky" adrenal cortical carcinoma tumour that was also stuck to Ms Speirs' liver.
It is now a year later and Ms Speirs is still cancer-free, but sometimes she gets hit emotionally by the experience.
"I can be perfectly fine one day, and the next day, I'll just cry and cry and get it out of my system," she said. "I feel like my body betrayed me."READ MORE
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