After Overlooking Her Continuous Burping, This 24-Year-Old Was Diagnosed With Stage 3 Cancer

A woman of 24 years old was recently diagnosed with cancer after ignoring the strange symptom of constant burping for an extended period of time.

A nurse from Florida named Bailey McBreen, who was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2021, found out she had the disease when she began burping ten times a day, which was something she had not given much consideration to in the past.

She struggled with strange symptoms, the most severe of which were stomach pains and acid reflux, which developed over time.

Bailey wasn’t worried about her burping at first. Image Credit: Jam Press

Despite the fact that the 24-year-old lived an active, healthy lifestyle that included numerous trips to the gym each week, she was still able to quickly recognize that something was ‘wrong’ with her body.

“I worked out 5-6 times a week consistently for at least 14 months,” she says. “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,” she added.

After undergoing an unexpected operation in January, Bailey is scheduled to undergo chemotherapy treatments up to the end of August.

Bailey is now doing chemotherapy in a bid to cure the diseae. Credit: Jam Press

She said that the burping had begun the previous year, but she disregarded the basic warning signs until it had advanced to the point where it was excruciating acid reflux. Her physicians eventually diagnosed her condition as being anxiety-related.

Bailey had all of a sudden lost her appetite, and the agonizing discomfort in her stomach prevented her from going to the restroom. She was a seasoned nurse who reported that she felt a ‘obstruction’ going on within her body. A CT scan revealed that the ‘obstruction’ was really a tumor developing in her colon.

Bailey told NeedToKnow.co.uk: “Never in a million years did I think that any vague symptom I had was actually stage three colon cancer.”

Bailey’s cancer is very rare for her age. Credit: Jam Press

Only two people out of every 100,000 are diagnosed each year with Bailey’s form of cancer, making it an extremely uncommon form of the disease. “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. I was in a complete state of shock,” she says

After receiving the diagnosis in January, she learned that the tumor was positioned further up the transverse colon, which is situated directly underneath the other organs in the abdominal cavity. This information came to light after she received her diagnosis.

According to Bailey, the growth was to blame for the development of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), which was also the root cause of full intestinal blockage.

She said: “GERD was a symptom in my case because my tumour was slowly causing a complete bowel obstruction. As a result, my food was not completely digesting and was getting ‘trapped’ above my tumour, causing my reflux and burping.”

“Excessive burping isn’t your textbook sign of colon cancer but my oncologist told me that it was likely the start of my symptoms.”

McBreen has made the courageous decision that she will fight the illness despite the devastating news that she received.

She said: “I refuse to let it define me. I am doing everything I can humanly do to fight this disease. I have switched over to completely non-toxic living – all of my beauty products, household cleaning supplies, and cookware are nontoxic. Cancer does not discriminate. Anything that is new to you, even if it’s otherwise considered a normal thing, needs to be addressed.”