A 20-year-old woman woke up with a hangover after a night out drinking with friends, but it turned out to be so much more than that . Allison Pickard, a pet sitter from Newport Beach, California, explained in a series of videos posted on social media how she discovered she had a 4 cm brain tumor that led to having surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment. She woke up from a night out after only getting an hour of sleep and experienced a throbbing headache and "wobbly" vision, symptoms that she had experienced before , but shrugged them off because she was young and healthy, only for them to turn out to be cancer .
Nagging husband saves wife’s life after 'bitten tongue' turns out to be cancer 'Doctors told me my disturbing symptom was just hormones - it was actually cancer' Allison said: "I thought that I was just hungover. My vision was really bad, it was like I was on a boat and then it [my field of vision] was spinning so fast, it was really wobbly. It wasn't just in my peripheral anymore, I knew something was wrong.
" After that, she went to see her primary care doctor, where she had an MRI. This wasn't the first time the 20-year-old had felt similar symptoms. She suffered from frequent headaches that she blamed on everything from PMS to caffeine withdrawal.
About a month before her faux-hangover, she experienced pins and needles on one side of her body, but because it passed quickly, she brushed it off. She said: "I thought my doctor would tell me I have a vitamin deficiency or a headache condition, I never thought it could be a brain tumour. Because she had no previous health issues and no family history of cancer, she never thought that she would have such a serious, life-threatening condition.
Doctors told her that her brain had swelled up, impacting her vision and determined that she had a brain tumor in her occipital lobe. A few days later, she had her first surgery ever. She underwent a three-hour operation at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California and immediately began chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
She's grateful that she listened to her body and went to see a doctor, and that her doctor believed her. Her advice would for others experiencing strange symptoms would be to "trust to your gut" and if your doctor is not taking you seriously, try to find another doctor." "That hangover saved my life.
I definitely didn't expect it to be cancer. You never think it's going to be you, you think you have to be older or unhealthy to have health issues." Click here to follow the Mirror US on Google News to stay up to date with all the latest news, sport and entertainment stories.
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Health
'I thought I had a bad hangover after a girls' night out - it turned out to be cancer'
A 20-year-old California woman woke up with what she thought was a hangover after a night out drinking with friends, but it turned out to be brain cancer.