Texas woman has 17-pound tumor removed after getting second opinion – WHIO TV 7 and WHIO Radio

DALLAS – A second opinion never hurts. A woman from Texas followed her intuition and it saved her life.

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Amanda Shoultz, 29, of Dallas is recovering after a 17-pound cancerous tumor was removed from her body last week, WFAA reported.

“Life throws curveballs at us,” Shoultz wrote on Facebook. “And this one hit me right in the face.”

Shoultz said she was alarmed that she was putting on weight around her stomach. She changed her diet and started exercising more, but there was no change, the TV station reported.

“I started to physically notice a change in my stomach in January,” Shoultz told the WFAA. “I had noticed that I was slowly starting to gain weight over the years, but I just thought that was part of aging.

“But that, my stomach almost seemed to be bloated all the time.”

Shoultz, a senior marketing and public relations consultant at Baylor Scott & White Heart and Vascular Hospital in Dallas, decided to see a doctor, but all tests returned to normal.

“Very normal and nothing fancy,” she told WFAA.

Still skeptical, Shoultz made an appointment with a gastroenterologist, who performed another round of blood tests and ordered a CT scan.

The scan revealed the problem – a 33-centimeter-wide cancerous tumor was growing inside Shoultz’s stomach. On September 21, she was diagnosed with liposarcoma, a rare type of cancer that develops in the fatty tissue of a person.

According to the National Organization for Rare Diseases, liposarcoma affects approximately 2,000 people per year in the United States.

Six days after the diagnosis, Shoultz underwent surgery at Baylor University Medical Center, the WFAA reported. Because the tumor had wrapped around one of Shoultz’s kidneys and adrenal glands, both had to be removed, the TV station reported.

Shoultz said she was stunned to learn the tumor weighed 17 pounds.

“When I woke up and they told me it weighed so much, I remember saying, ‘I think I misheard you because of the drugs I’m taking,'” Shoultz told the WFAA . “It’s huge.”

Doctors told Shoultz that the cancer had not spread and that she was discharged from the hospital after five days. She said she was grateful for following her instincts and listening to her instincts.

“Listen to your body because no one knows it better than you,” Shoultz told the WFAA. “If all the tests come back well and you are still seeing changes in your body, see your doctor.”

On Facebook, Shoultz said his goal before he turned 30 was to beat cancer.

“To keep me strong and focused, I chose to handle this privately with a group close to family and friends,” Shoultz wrote on Facebook. “I am now home and on the road to recovery, and I am happy to share with all of you that I am doing well. “

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