As told to Shannon Shelton Miller
For close to five years, indigestion was just a part of my life. As the years went on, I started waking up in the middle of the night with indigestion that caused me to throw up. Every time I ate certain foods, I’d get sick.
I was told I might have cellulitis when I went for a scan in 2018. At later appointments, my doctors said it might be acid reflux, but I never felt there was anything more serious going on than that.
But, in early 2023, my abdominal and back pain was so excruciating, I had to go to the emergency room. I’d been in pain for more than a month and I couldn’t even get my daughter ready for school. It was during this ER visit that the doctor did a CT scan and told me I had a watermelon-sized tumor on my pancreas. I had surgery two weeks later.
I learned the tumor had been present since 2018, and it was cancerous. My doctors in 2018 didn’t tell me about it, even though the tumor was visible on the scan, and I later filed a medical malpractice suit.
Fortunately, the cancer was at stage 1 because the cancer had not spread beyond the tumor. My surgeon described it like a blow pop — the tumor was the outside covering and my pancreas was the gum in the middle. To remove the tumor, they also had to remove 90% of my pancreas, my spleen and 29 lymph nodes. The lymph nodes were removed to be tested to see if cancer was found in any of them, but luckily, it had not moved to my lymph nodes. I was then scheduled for chemotherapy to make sure all the cancer was gone.
So many thoughts went through my mind when I heard the word “cancer.” I was just 34, but I thought, This is the end of my life. These are the last moments I’ll have with my children. I was in a really dark space for a long time, but I’m so thankful my brother, who lives about four hours away, called one day and talked to me for two hours.
“Worry about the now, don't worry about the future,” he said. “Don’t worry about losing your hair in the future. You have hair now, so go to the mirror and do every style you can think of. Get a journal. Put sticky notes somewhere to remind you of who you are. You got this. You're going to beat this.”
Brittany’s mirror of encouragement
When I got off the phone and my husband came home, we went to buy some sticky notes. I wrote messages to myself on them and put them on my bathroom mirror. Any time I wanted to give up or needed encouragement, I’d go in the bathroom and read the notes. When friends and family came over, they’d leave a note too. I’d go in my bathroom and see more notes every time. It became my mirror of encouragement.
Soon, I started saying, “I’m going to fight this.” “I'm going to win this.” “I'm going to be here for my kids.” “I'm gonna make the best of this.” I went to my chemo appointments like I was going on a brunch date because I never wanted to look like what I was going through.
I rang the bell November 29, 2023, and have been cancer-free since then. Still, after I finished chemo, I was tired and out of it mentally. I could not find my new normal. It took another year before I started trying to take care of myself mentally and physically.
When you’re going through it, you’re not really able to process what’s happening to you. I also noticed when I’d hear of anyone passing from pancreatic cancer, it would hit me hard. When the singer D’Angelo passed recently, I lost it, and more so because he died from pancreatic cancer.
October became a hard month for me because I would see all the attention given to breast cancer awareness, when I saw little-to-nothing for pancreatic cancer awareness month in November. I recently started therapy to get some help dealing with my emotions about pancreatic cancer and life.
I do have more gratitude now about my life. I appreciate the little things I never truly did before, like getting my kids ready for school in the morning because I couldn’t do that while going through chemo. Every morning I wake up, I fix my cup of coffee and, as I'm looking out my kitchen window, I just appreciate the wind blowing through the trees, the leaves falling and the beauty of nature.
I'm happier now than I ever was before. I make time for myself. I make time for self-care. I spend a lot of time alone journaling, processing how I feel and healing from the inside out.
2023
The night before I started chemo, I posted a video about my journey on TikTok. I didn’t think I was going to share it at first, but I wanted to spread the message: “If something feels off, get it checked out. Go to the emergency room, just don't put it off.” The next morning, that video had 137,000 views and so many comments. My inbox blew up. Since my diagnosis, so many people from TikTok and in my town — people I didn’t even know before — have shown up for me and shown their support.
I’ve been posting videos ever since, from my morning routine to other aspects of my life. I didn’t want to just be known as “cancer girl” on TikTok, but I still want people to be aware of pancreatic cancer. If you don't know what to look for, you can miss the symptoms. A lot of times it's caught too late because your symptoms are common concerns like low energy, bloating, back pain and abdominal pain here and there.
If the symptoms are caught early, pancreatic cancer doesn’t have to be a death sentence. The most important thing is advocating for yourself and not just taking one healthcare provider's word. Continue to fight for yourself and your family. As long as you have breath in your body, never give up on yourself.
This educational resource was created with support from Merck.
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