English
As told by Shannon Shelton Miller
For almost five years, indigestion was just a part of my life. Over the years, I would wake up at night with indigestion that led to vomiting. Every time I ate certain foods, I felt sick.
During a test in 2018, I was told I had cellulite. In subsequent consultations, my doctors said it could be gastroesophageal reflux and I never thought it could be anything more serious.
However, in the first few months of 2023, my stomach and back pain was so unbearable that I had to go to the emergency room. I had been in pain for over a month and couldn’t even get my daughter ready for school. In that emergency room, a doctor performed a CT scan and told me I had a tumor the size of a watermelon in my pancreas. Two weeks later I had surgery.
They told me that this tumor had been there since 2018 and that it was cancerous. My doctors didn’t tell me about it in 2018, even though the tumor showed up on imaging tests, so I later sued them for medical negligence.
Fortunately, the cancer was stage 1 as it had not spread to anywhere other than the tumor. My surgeon described it as a pacifier and gums, the tumor was the outer covering and my pancreas was the gums in the middle. In order to remove the tumor, 90% of my pancreas, spleen and 29 lymph nodes also had to be removed. The lymph nodes were removed to check if there was cancer in any of them, but fortunately the cancer had not spread to my lymph nodes. Chemotherapy sessions were scheduled to ensure that the cancer was completely eradicated.
I thought of so many things when I heard the word “cancer.” I was only 34 years old, but I thought that was the end of my life. These are the last moments I will spend with my children. I was really miserable for a long time, but I’m so grateful for my brother, who lives about four hours from my home, and he called me one day and we talked for two hours.
“Worry about the present, not the future,” he said. “Don’t worry about losing your hair in the future. You have hair now, so stand in front of the mirror and try out all the hairstyles you want. Get a journal. Put sticky notes somewhere to help you remember who you are. You can do this. You will do this.”
Brittany’s motivational mirror
When I finished talking on the phone, my husband came home and we went shopping for sticky notes. I wrote messages on it and hung it on my bathroom mirror. Every time I wanted to give up or needed motivation, I went to the bathroom and read the notes. When friends and family came to visit, they also left a message. I went into my bathroom and saw more and more notes. It became my motivational mirror.
Soon I started saying, “I’m going to fight this.” “I’ll get through this.” “I will be there for my children.” “I’ll make the best of it.” I went to chemo sessions like I was at a breakfast buffet with friends because I never wanted to show what I was going through.
I completed therapy on November 29, 2023 and have been cancer-free since then. However, after completing chemotherapy, I felt tired and mentally exhausted. I couldn’t find a new standard of normality. Another year passed and only then did I start taking care of myself mentally and physically.
When you go through this, you are unable to process what is happening to you. I also realized that when I heard that someone had died of pancreatic cancer, it really affected me. When singer D’Angelo died recently, I lost it, even more so when he died of pancreatic cancer.
October became a difficult month for me as I saw a lot of attention being paid to breast cancer awareness, while November, which is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, saw little to no attention. I recently began having therapeutic sessions to deal with my emotions related to pancreatic cancer and my life.
I now feel more gratitude for my life. I appreciate little things that I never really appreciated before, like getting my kids ready for school in the morning because I couldn’t do that during chemotherapy. Every morning after I wake up, I make my cup of coffee and look out my kitchen window to enjoy the movement of the trees in the wind, the falling leaves and the beauty of nature.
I’m happier than ever. I reserve time for myself. I take time for personal care. I spend a lot of time alone journaling, processing my feelings, and healing from the inside out.
2023
The evening before chemotherapy started, I posted a video about my experiences on TikTok. At first I thought I wouldn’t share it, but I wanted to spread the message: “If something feels strange, get it checked out. Go to the emergency room, don’t put it off.” By the next morning, the video had been viewed 137,000 times and had tons of comments. My inbox exploded. Since my diagnosis, many people from TikTok and from my city that I didn’t even know have contacted me to offer support.
Since then, I’ve been posting videos, from my morning routine to other aspects of my life. I didn’t want to be known as the “girl with cancer” on TikTok, but I still want to raise awareness for pancreatic cancer. If you don’t know what to look for, you may not recognize the symptoms. It is often not recognized until very late because the symptoms are common problems such as lack of energy, bloating, back pain and stomach pain.
If symptoms are detected early, pancreatic cancer does not have to be a death sentence. The most important thing is to take care of yourself and not just assume that a healthcare provider will tell you the right thing. Continue to defend your well-being and that of your family. As long as you keep breathing, never give up.
This educational resource was created with support from Merck.
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