In September 2023, Lindsay Li excitedly picked up the keys to a new house in the suburbs.
She and her partner Fernando had to trade life in a small apartment for a large backyard in the suburbs and life couldn’t have been better.
She could never have predicted how different her life would be twelve months later.
In August 2024, Lindsay was writhing around on the floor of a hospital emergency room, dosed with morphine and endon, and in unimaginable pain after a large cancerous tumor ruptured in her stomach.
Instead of celebrating her second Christmas in her own home, she now struggles with brutal rounds of chemotherapy, learns to live and eat without a stomach and, at her lowest, researches assisted dying retreats in Switzerland.
Speaking to FEMAIL, Lindsay shared her heartache as she described how her life went from wonderful to hellish in just a few months.
The first sign that something was wrong was a little bit of heartburn she suffered during the move. She attributed it to stress.
Although it may have seemed small, doctors told her that the tumor resembled a “time bomb” and had been allowed to grow in her stomach for more than seven years before it finally ruptured.
“It’s scary and it’s been super tough for us. Buying our first house and then no longer being able to work. it’s a lot of stress,” she said.
Shortly after settling into their new home, the happy couple took a vacation to Korea to start the new year. When she didn’t feel better in February, she went to the doctor.
Lindsay Li, center, pictured with her father and her partner Fernando, right. Lindsay looked and felt healthy when she was diagnosed with stomach cancer
Speaking to FEMAIL, Lindsay shared her heartache as she described how her life went from wonderful to hellish in just a few months.
The first sign that something was wrong was a little bit of heartburn she suffered during the move. She attributed it to stress
The doctor tested her breath for a common bacteria and it was found in large quantities. Satisfied that they had gotten to the bottom of the problem, Lindsay went on antibiotics.
It worked reasonably well, but there was still some discomfort, including bloating, and further testing showed that the bacteria count had dropped, but not gone.
So she went another round. Then another. And… then another.
By the end of her fifth course of antibiotics, Lindsay was feeling even worse, with the burning sensation at the top of her stomach, the bloating significantly worse, the onset of nausea and fatigue.
By then the doctor believed she had some kind of stomach ulcer.
Lindsay was tired of taking endless courses of antibiotics, as she had been doing for three months – so she went to get a second opinion.
“I wish I had gone to a different doctor after the second course of antibiotics,” she said.
The second doctor took blood and told her to “go to the emergency room.” Her red blood cell count was dangerously low, as were her iron levels.
Since then, Lindsay has had to learn to live without a stomach, lost weight and undergone fortnightly chemotherapy treatments with her partner by her side.
After a long emergency wait, Lindsay was offered a CT scan. Doctors noticed irregularities and asked her to stay overnight.
“At that point I still thought it was all caused by an ulcer,” she said.
“But I started to worry a little more.” Doctors did some more tests, including an endoscopy.
The next day, August 1, 2024, Lindsay’s gastrosurgeon came into the room and told her she had big news, giving her the chance to call her partner for support.
‘I didn’t want to call him, I knew I had to find out the big news myself. So I could tell him my way. But when she said it, I thought about cancer for the first time,” she said.
The doctor confirmed this ‘wild thought’ and revealed that things were quite serious as the tumor was large and appeared to have spread to the lymph nodes.
She says she has always lived life to the fullest and will get back to that once she gets better
The 39-year-old’s mother died of colon cancer at the age of 45. She is terrified her cancer journey will end the same way
‘They made a plan, they were going to do chemotherapy to shrink the tumor, and then they knew how much of the stomach to take. Then they would do more chemo,” she said.
She was sent home to process the information and tell her partner. She called her boss, who put her job on hold, and her partner moved to casual work to support her and take her to appointments.
“It was so stressful because we had just bought a house,” she said.
Lindsay’s mother died of colon cancer at the age of 45. Lindsay was 16.
That didn’t dampen Lindsay’s determination and she immediately started chemotherapy.
Then, after the second round, she came home, ate two sushi rolls and fell to the floor in the most excruciating pain she had ever experienced.
Her partner rushed her to hospital as she screamed in pain, which she said felt like she was being ‘stabbed’ over and over again.
When she got to the emergency room, she told them she was currently undergoing cancer treatment, but it was a busy night, so she was given painkillers and told to wait her turn.
“I remember writhing on the floor in pain even though they had given me morphine and endon,” she said.
Six agonizing hours later she was admitted for a scan. It showed that the tumor in her stomach had ruptured.
“They started rolling me down the hall for emergency surgery. They told me they wouldn’t know what they would do until they got in there and asked me to sign consent forms so they could remove my entire stomach if necessary,” she said.
‘At that moment I was in so much pain that I would have signed anything to make it stop.’
She woke up the next day in the intensive care unit, surrounded by her family and hooked up to dozens of tubes.
According to the doctors, the tumor had been growing for years, but Lindsay only started feeling bloated shortly before her diagnosis.
“It’s all a bit foggy, but I remember the tube coming out of my nose and all the things that were connected to my body,” she said.
That night, the epidural doctors had migrated to manage her pain.
“I woke up in excruciating pain, but couldn’t get any more medication,” she said.
Over the next few days the young woman came to realize that she had no stomach; her esophagus was attached to her intestine.
Doctors took 19 lymph nodes when they removed the ruptured tumor and stomach.
Now Lindsay is back on chemo. But the impact of the medications and her inability to digest food easily are wreaking havoc on her health.
She has lost weight to 47 kilos, is exhausted and finds eating painful… especially in the days after chemo.
‘Everything goes straight to my intestines, so I have to chew very well. “I can’t eat properly so I need six to eight meals a day,” she added.
These meals consist of something as simple as a single egg.
‘It takes about an hour to eat. “If I don’t chew properly, it hurts a lot more,” she said.
“But I can’t eat soup because I fill up on fluids too quickly, so I can’t eat enough.”
Lindsay can drink a little water, but not within 30 minutes of eating.
Lindsay, a foodie, now has to eat six to eight times a day because she can only eat a small portion
The first three or four days after chemotherapy are even more difficult. Lindsay suffers from hypersensitivity to cold.
“I can’t even reach into the fridge, it’s like I’m getting a huge electric shock,” she said.
This means she cannot be fed specially formulated, high-calorie liquid meals, which are filled with vitamins, minerals and fats crucial to her survival.
Lindsay tries to remain confident that her cancer will go away after chemotherapy. However, cells were found in nine of her lymph nodes.
‘They will do scans when I finish my current chemo on Christmas Day. That will show us if the cancer has spread to more organs,” she said.
The 39-year-old doesn’t want to die a long, slow death, which is why she has contacted death clinics in Switzerland. However, she was shocked that it cost $20,000 to use.
Her boyfriend started one Go finance me to help the couple financially.
‘I really just want to get better. I can’t wait to get back to work and move into our new house and just get on with life. I want to keep traveling and living,” Lindsay said.
Lindsay shares her story in the hope that other people will get a second opinion more quickly.
“The point is that most symptoms could be due to something minor, but it’s important to check this out,” she said.