27-year-old woman diagnosed with rare cancer builds community on ‘CancerTok’

[Music] it's more of like a relaxing vacation versus like a touristy one Natasha Allen is packing for the trip of a lifetime traveling to Egypt is just one stop on her bucket list at 27 years old she's got big plans I visited Asia Europe North America Antarctica is probably going to have to happen last but there's an urgency to Natasha's go scuba diving go skydiving which is funny because I'm scared of heights she was diagnosed with a serious and rare form of cancer four years ago I feel some sense of control just like knowing that I'm able to check things off Natasha is a part of a growing and disturbing uptick of younger people people under 50 diagnosed with cancer like Kate Middleton Chadwick Boseman and actress Olivia mun cancer is the that's the word you don't want to hear but maybe most concerning to many is the rise in cancers in even younger adults under the age of 40 more than 84,000 new cases are estimated to be diagnosed in people between the ages of 15 and 39 this year alone rates of new cancers in this age group increasing nearly a whole percentage Point each year on average between 2014 and 2018 why do you think we're seeing a rising rate in the diagnosis of cancer and more specifically in young people particularly in younger patients where we're seeing are a lot of St stage three stage 4 so Advanced cancers um and that's a little bit more sobering because what that tells us is that something is changing something is changing globally or environmentally that could be affecting large groups of patients I think the image of a cancer patient is an old an older person who's frail when you hear cancer you think death right away even if you don't want to and I just kept on thinking I am 23 I'm 23 like this is not supposed to happened to me I have stage one pancreatic cancer which is a rare diagnosis experiencing cancer as a young person can be alienating for many some gen Z and Millennial patients are turning to social media to cope and share their Journeys on Tik Tok or cancer talk let's dance you're joking I predicted my cancer Natasha also joined cancer talk shortly after her initial diagnosis in 20120 let's go and rewind the tape when you first notice symptoms help me to understand what that was like in the fall 2019 I started having knee issues as you can see it's quite large and my other knee looks normal it started affecting my walking I started limping and uh limping is not so cute when you are 22 years old and just fresh out of college she searched for answers for months and ultimately was diagnosed with stage three cobal saroma I sat on the table and my doctor came in did not even look at me and he was just like it's a tumor had no emotion and then I asked him I'm like what kind of tumor and he said senovio saroma Google it so I took out my phone and Googled it and the first thing it says is rare and aggressive when I saw that I started crying that day was just like The Darkest Day of My Life The National Cancer Institute described sovial saroma as a cancer that tends to be found near large joints such as the knees it's so rare that only one or two people in a million are diagnosed with this type of cancer each year in the United States these cancers tend to arise in soft tissues mostly muscles and so patients will often say that they've noticed a lump over the course of weeks to months that's been growing maybe even years Dr Salon puner is an oncologist who specializes in treating sarcomas when people are watching this a young person they might say well I can't get screened until I'm in my 40s for most of these things what we know about the younger people who are developing cancers is that we don't know what's making them high risk and we don't have a way to identify them ahead of time so my advice for anybody who's concerned is that if you have something that's going on in your health that you feel is not addressed make sure that you get to the bottom of it after undergoing chemotherapy and radiation Natasha went into remission the following spring feeling optimistic she pursued one of her first lifelong dreams moving from Los Angeles to New York but just one month after landing in the Big Apple and less than 6 months after her last treatment ended she received devastating news the cancer was back and it had spread there were spots on my lungs I did a biopsy November 2021 confirmed COV saroma stage 4 I kind of like expected my cancer to come back but I was like expecting to have like two to five good years before I came back got less than a year um and I think I kind of just started taking stock on my life so right now I'm just fighting it um doing all I can uh but then also enjoying my life as being a 27-year-old in New York that life includes a nine-to-five job in finance spending time with her mom Sabina who is a producer at ABC News chemo kits and keeping up with her cancer Talk account which has exploded in popularity oh someone just responded to me now saying I want to tell you that your story is so inspiring and I'm so thankful I came across your page you talked about followers you've got more than 168,000 followers more than 22 million likes what does that make you feel like it makes me happy but not for you know the pursuit of Fame but more so that more people are seeing um the awareness I'm bringing to uh the disease I watched a lot of your videos and you managed to make very difficult times into sometimes extremely funny moments where does that come from if you think about it you either cry or you laugh and I'd rather be laughing than crying that online community a Lifeline for so many like 19-year-old Isabella Strahan my colleague Michael Strahan's daughter who in partnership with the Preston Robert Tish brain tumor Center at Duke has documented her battle with medula blastoma a type of brain cancer every day is another day closer to getting better and Lydia abai diagnosed with Hopkins lymphoma when she was in college one of the worst chemo symptoms that no one talks about is how everything tastes horrible she now says she cancer free and I'm really grateful that people posted their experiences and that's when I started posting about mine to help other people while there's moral support to be gained from cancer talk and similar posts some medical experts urge caution in using social media as a diagnostic tool it may not be always accurate for every single patient oncologist Dr Laura Chambers has studied online content surrounding cancer looking at the validity of claims made on Tik to videos specifically about gynecologic cancer there's a lot of misinformation about things that are not necessarily recommended Cancer Treatments so things that may be alternative therapies Herbal Remedies things like that which may not have a lot of evidence but she says there's no denying the connection patients feel from these posts I think that it is an amazing resource because cancer talk really allows people to find a community be able to share their experiences which can be really helpful when Natasha's not online hey guys her trivia night with friends is one of her favorite weekly Traditions the only reason I know about her is Glee it gives me like a sense of normaly and just like being able to hang out with friends and not think about cancer I guess and just like being a normal 20-year-old in New York City you talked about mortality in sharing your diagnosis how did you explain to your audience what the outcome of a diagnosis like this was so 15% of people with my diagnosis live to live another 5 years I'm trying to be one of those 15 % I'm an overachiever I got to straight A I went to an ivy league if anyone can beat this it's going to be me and I kind of have to tell myself that too I will be one of those 15% our thanks to Dr Sutton

Channel: ABC News

Views: 23,294

Keywords: Allen, CancerTok, Natasha, abc, abcnews, diagnosis, four, health, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-110805647, rare, sarcoma, stage, synovial

Id: YmgNRKa6YEQ

Length: 8min 14sec (494 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 04 2024