Nausea after just a few drinks: Young woman thought cancer was a hangover

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Everyone knows the unpleasant feeling of a hangover after a night of drinking. But Poppy Beguely, 20, from Auckland, New Zealand, aged 19, felt very bad the next day after just two drinks. In April 2022, the swimming instructor, who also works as a florist, woke up for the first time after leaving with serious complaints. She spoke to a reporter from the Needtoknow portal about her story.

The young woman vomited, suffered a nosebleed and discovered a severe rash on her face. Beguely initially thought she had not tolerated the alcohol the night before. But the symptoms did not disappear. In addition, she started coughing up blood.

Diagnosis of lymphatic cancer

She was hospitalized three times between June and October 2022. In all cases she had partied the night before. “Almost every night I went out, I would throw up that same night or the next morning,” she says. Two drinks – and nothing worked anymore.

Doctors initially assumed Beguely was suffering from deep vein thrombosis. So a blood clot deep in the body? When she also developed neck pain in December 2022, she went to another doctor. She described her symptoms again and the doctor immediately had an alarming suspicion. “For so long I was afraid that something could be seriously wrong and that no one would find out what it was,” says the young woman.

New tests finally brought clarity: Poppy Beguely suffered from stage three lymphatic cancer. A six-centimeter tumor grew in her breast. Shortly after her twentieth birthday in February 2023, she began four months of chemotherapy.

“I didn’t know what was going on for a year.”

But that’s not all: after a severe reaction to a blood transfusion, the New Zealander had to stay in hospital for a while. She reports the “worst pain I have ever experienced in my life.” The amount of painkillers she had to take also affected her gastrointestinal tract. She weighed only 35 kilograms and was fed through a tube. “That was the only time I was really afraid for my life.”

Today Poppy Beguely is on the road to recovery and is now back to work. “Ultimately it gave me a different perspective on life. “I’m grateful to have my life back, especially after a year of not knowing what was going on,” she says, looking back. (no)

Source: Blick