- READ MORE: Doctors alarm after finding cancer exploding in young people
Lindsay Barad felt like she was in the best shape of her life.
The 39-year-old New Yorker had just run her fourth 26.2-mile marathon, and was avoiding alcohol and even eating clean. She felt unstoppable.
But just a month after the race in 2021, she was hit with a devastating diagnosis of stage four appendiceal cancer and told she had hundreds of tumors scattered over her insides.
‘I had never even heard of this cancer,’ Barad told an exclusive sit-down interview.
‘I didn’t know it was possible. I was really, really shocked. I had no other symptoms; I just thought this was some kind of endometriosis, something like that.’
Appendiceal cancer, or appendix cancer, is now the fastest-rising cancer among under-50s, with young adults today being up to seven times more likely to develop the disease as in the 1940s.
Barad is among the latest young adults to be diagnosed with the disease and, like many others, said she has no idea why she developed it, despite her healthy lifestyle.
She also has no idea when it started. She had heavy periods, menstrual cramps and bloating for as long as she could remember, which can be symptoms of appendicceal cancer, but had always played them down as normal.
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Doctors had dismissed them too, saying they were ‘just something women go through’ and putting her on birth control and over-the-counter painkillers to reduce her symptoms.
But in late 2021, after she changed gynecologist, Barad was recommended for an ultrasound on the pretence of getting an IUD, or small T-shaped device that is inserted into the uterus to prevent pregnancy.
The scan revealed a grapefruit-sized cyst on her right ovary, despite the fact that ovaries are only about three to five centimeters long. This was also very large for Barad, who is just 5ft 1in tall.
She was rushed into surgery, but during the procedure doctors noted a strange mucus in her abdominal cavity and that her appendix was swollen.
They removed her appendix and sent it for testing, along with her cyst, right ovary and right fallopian tube.
A few weeks later, in December 2021, she was called back into her doctor’s office to be given the diagnosis.
Barad said: ‘It’s hard to figure out when was that quote-unquote normal [menstrual cramps] versus when did I have appendix cancer, and that was what was making the symptoms.
‘What was a red flag symptom was close to my diagnosis I had to urinate a lot, and I would notice every time I would drink something I would have to use the bathroom. I always felt the need to pee.
‘And it turned out that was because I had a huge ovarian cyst and it was taking up space where my bladder is and that was me needing to urinate.’
Appendiceal cancer has no clear symptoms, especially in its early stages, meaning doctors often struggle to diagnose the disease.
It is rare, with about 3,000 cases every year, and normally diagnosed in people around 50 and 55 years old.
But as cases have risen among younger adults, researchers have suggested that shifts in the microbiome caused by the western diet could be raising the risk of developing the cancer.
This is also one of the leading theories linked to a surge in colon cancer in young people.
There are several types of the cancer, but Barad was diagnosed with low-grade appendiceal mucinous neoplasm (LAMN), a rare and slow-growing form where cells in the appendix overproduce mucin — a jelly-like substance — that can flood the abdominal cavity and push other cells into it.
This disruption in the body’s internal cavity can cause a large cyst to develop on an ovary, like in Barad’s case, or on another organ of the body.
It isn’t clear how often this form of the disease affects patients, but some studies on only a small number of patients have suggested it is around 40 percent of all cases.
To treat her cancer, Barad was brought in for a major 12-hour surgery in March 2022 to try to clear the disease from her body.
For the procedure, surgeons initially made an incision from her chest to her pelvis and opened up her body, before trying to remove as much of mucin as possible that was coating each organ.
They removed part of her liver, omentum – the thin tissue surrounding the stomach – and part of her diaphragm during the surgery because these were covered in mucin.
Doctors also said they might have to remove her uterus, leaving Barad unable to start a family, but managed to save the organ.
Then, doctors pumped her abdominal cavity full of chemotherapy drugs heated to 106F (41C), sewed her up and rotated her for about 90 minutes. She was rotated to spread the chemotherapy drugs in her abdomen to treat any remaining cancer cells.
The drugs were then extracted, and Barad said she went through months of a ‘miserable’ recovery where she was so unwell she was barely able to leave the apartment.
But the surgery was a success, and the cancer has not been detected in Barad since. She now returns every year to the hospital to check for recurrence.
Appendix cancer is slow-growing, however, with Barad saying that she will never be considered ‘cured,’ just ‘in remission’ because of the risk more cancerous cells could appear.
She said: ‘It’s so slow moving, it could be slowly growing over the next couple of years, so it’s uncertain.
‘But every year now I get scans and blood work done and I feel like I am just in really good hands with all of this.’
Survival rates for appendix cancer vary widely depending on the type and how advanced the cancer is, with between 67 and 97 percent of patients living for longer than five years after their diagnosis.
For LAMN, about 64 percent of patients survive for longer than five years according to studies.
Amid her recovery, Barad said she is now trying to live an intentional life and is thankful for the people around her and aiming to raise awareness about the disease.
She lives in her apartment with her dog Charlie, a rescued Maltese poodle mix, and keeps active with long hikes.
She also had her eggs frozen at age 35 in case she wanted to start a family but now says she doesn’t think she wants to put her body through the trial of pregnancy.
Barad is thankful that her cancer was slow growing but fears the outcome if it had not been detected earlier.
She was helped through her journey by PMP Pals and the Abdominal Cancers Alliance, which aim to help patients with the disease.
