Annika, a 28-year-old California woman has revealed the horror of being diagnosed with a lethal sinus cancer that affects less than one in a million individuals, which resulted in the loss of her right eye.
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The woman’s doctors misdiagnosed the ‘golf ball-sized growth’ that had spread throughout her face as a sinus infection.
while talking about her condition on her social media page, she said she awoke one morning in 2023 to discover that the inner corner of her right eye was irritated.
According to her, while she initially dismissed it, by the evening, her face started to pain on the right side and got swollen around her right eye the next day, causing her to seek medical assistance.
A CT scan in the emergency hospital revealed inflammation around Annika’s eye, prompting doctors to suspect a sinus infection. The swelling subsided for a few days, only to return around a week later and the doctors realized it didn’t feel like a sinus anymore.
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Another CT scan revealed a lump ‘approximately the size of a golf ball,’ which was not there three weeks prior.
Annika was diagnosed with stage four sinonasal cancer, SMARCB1, which had spread to her face, lungs, and lymph nodes.
According to an NIH study, there have been fewer than 200 cases described in medical literature. The study also showed that it accounts for only one percent of all head and neck malignancies.
Symptoms include nasal blockages, headaches, ocular protrusion, and nosebleeds.
Annika stated that she began chemo ‘almost immediately,’ which lasted nine weeks. However, she noticed little progress and underwent surgery in December 2023 where her right eye and other surrounding tissues were removed.