Huntington Beach, California – At the age of 29, breast cancer was the last thing on Felicia Labonte’s mind. But in 2018, while at the movies with her boyfriend, she made a discovery while adjusting her sports bra.
“In the lower left chest I felt something really strange,” she said. “It was the size of a marble. It wasn’t my normal body tissue. I didn’t feel right.”
I went to have her checked and was told it was probably a benign cyst.
“Everyone assured me that my blood work was fine,” Labonte said. “I was healthy, riding motorbikes, and was traveling internationally.” “I had no other symptoms.”
However, Labonte felt that something was off. But she did not have health insurance and did not qualify for Medi-Cal. She had to rely on the free clinic.
She said, “I asked for a mammogram. The doctor I was seeing in the mammogram program came forward. And they said in return I declined because of my age. I was very young and had no family history.”
She asked her doctor to apply again, and was refused again. Her doctor told her if it grew worse or became uncomfortable to come back. Eight months later, she returned to the free clinic and said that by that time her lump had grown to eight centimeters in size.
“I went into the clinic, they did an emergency mammogram, an emergency ultrasound and the way they were going back and forth and the tech was leaving the room — that was when I felt overwhelmed that something was really wrong.”
It was stage IV breast cancer that had spread to both her lungs, sternum and lymph nodes. Her oncologist started her on a chemotherapy drug commonly referred to as “the red devil.”
“It’s one of the wildest things I’ve ever been through. I couldn’t even swallow my spit. I couldn’t even open my eyes. It was brutal,” she said.
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Labonte says she found another oncologist and put him on a different chemotherapy regimen. Now in remission, you will be on oral chemotherapy for life. She says that she will not be able to carry a child.
The 35-year-old uses social media to spread awareness about her misdiagnosis in the hope that it will help others.
“I may not know how to do TikTok perfectly, but it’s reaching an audience that I’ve never been able to use with Instagram or Facebook and it’s going to be a way I can save a lot of lives,” she said.
Her posts have reached millions of views on the platform.
“If you feel something is wrong, go ahead,” she said. “Don’t stop until you find the care that suits you.”
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