(NewsNation) — A 39-year-old mother of two is speaking out after a medical misdiagnosis that put her through a grueling cancer treatment regimen, only to later discover she never had the disease.
“I was told that it was super rare, very deadly. It doesn’t have a good prognosis. That if we were being optimistic, I had about 15 months to look forward to,” Monk said Wednesday on NewsNation’s “Dan Abrams Live.”
Doctors immediately recommended aggressive chemotherapy and Monk was admitted to a hospital the next day to begin the treatment process.
“I had to be hospitalized for a week each time that we did the chemotherapy,” she recalled.
Months later, Monk received the news that she never had cancer at all. The mass found on her spleen, which prompted the initial diagnosis, was simply a blood vessel abnormality.
“He had to clarify that, ‘No, you never had cancer at all. Congratulations,'” Monk said. “To say that I had the biggest sense of relief and anger at the same exact moment is an understatement.”
“I just went through hell, I lost all of my hair. I got new scars, I had to try to prepare my two young children for me not to be here.”
Monk has not received any compensation or apology from the hospital, despite the error. She said the billing department refused to speak with her when she reached out.
“I get angry that I’m having to pay medical bills for a treatment that I never needed,” she said.
Monk is now focused on her recovery, both emotionally and physically, from the ordeal that upended her life.