For four months, Eva Casey was told that the excruciating pain she felt radiating from under her right ribcage was “all in her head.”
GPs, hospital staff and specialists all rejected her – some with a pack of strong, highly limited opioid painkillers and others with a roll, jokes about therapy or scripts for antidepressants.
One even admitted that he thought the 36-year-old probably had an eating disorder and made excuses not to eat.
But they were wrong.
And two weeks ago, the Irish-born dental assistant, who had just had the ‘best year of her life’ in Australia, was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
The young woman had been sent home from hospital for four months in a row – before telling her fiancé Kaillan she would stay until someone took her seriously
Eva Casey was diagnosed with cancer on July 20 after going to the hospital
Eva is relieved to finally know what’s causing her pain, but told FEMAIL she’s furious that so many medical professionals ignored her calls for help.
In just four months, Eva went from working out every day with her Crossfit community to so much pain she could barely get out of bed.
The once energetic, gymnastics-obsessed young woman felt tired for the first time in her life and dropped 16 pounds to just 39 pounds.
“As soon as the PET scanning technology came along and told me a few areas were lit up, I knew it was cancer,” she said.
Further research showed that the cancer was obstructing the flow from the stomach to the small intestine.
“I had told doctors it hurt to eat, it was like a stabbing pain, and now we know it was because my stomach had actually shut down,” she said.
Eva’s symptoms started four months ago – she started feeling pain at night, was tired, stopped performing in the gym and lost a lot of weight
Eva went from being fit and healthy to losing 16 pounds and falling back to just 39 pounds
She can’t wait to be healthy enough to return to the gym where she met her partner and built a strong Australian community
Eva started to feel the stabbing pain in February – at first it was only at night and she assumed she had eaten too late.
But then she started feeling sluggish in the gym, and the pain slowly became more and more acute.
In March, she couldn’t sleep and started feeling pain all day long.
Doctors had told her she had low iron levels and told her nothing else to worry about.
“They gave me every painkiller, tramadol, endone. But they did nothing. Normally I don’t even use Panadol. I didn’t understand why they didn’t get to the root of the problem.’
Eva will now undergo chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery to try and get rid of the disease
Her mother and father were in Australia when she was diagnosed
“I didn’t want to take them and when I did they had no effect,” she said.
Eva went to three different hospitals in Perth before ending up in the waiting room of a fourth.
“I told my partner I wouldn’t leave until I had answers,” she said.
But she didn’t have to push so hard — the doctor who saw her was happy to examine her symptoms.
Eva’s mother and father were in Australia when she was diagnosed after flying overseas to help her when they realized she was ill and unable to get help.
Her current medical team also doesn’t understand why she was rejected so often when she had all the classic symptoms of cancer.
“My pain specialist asked one of the doctors I had been to before why they hadn’t taken the weight loss and pain more seriously and they said because they thought I was just anorexic,” she said.
Eva hopes to be her happy, healthy self again soon
Others said they thought the young woman was stressed.
But she said she has nothing to worry about. In fact, 2022 was the “best year of her life,” and she assumed 2023 would follow.
She met her fiancé at the gym, decided to stay in Australia, got engaged, adopted a dog and started building a house.
“I was fit and healthy and happy, I’ve never had any mental health problems and I’ve never actually been sick.”
Eva has started eating again, using a feeding tube to get her body working.
She has also started chemotherapy and expects to undergo radiotherapy and surgery to beat the disease.
Her friends and family have one Go fund me to help her pay her medical bills as she will not be able to work for the foreseeable future.
“I just want to say that if you think something is wrong, push, let them do the tests,” she said.
Eva and Kaillan were supposed to get married in November, but have had to cancel their plans.
“I just hope we get a chance to do it in the future,” she said.