Yinka Sowemimo-Coker was 56 when she began sweating uncontrollably while climbing stairs at a work event in London.
She was admitted, tested and sent home with a diagnosis of anemia. But her body kept shrinking: in eight months she lost seven dress sizes. She returned to the hospital again and again. Colonoscopies, blood transfusions, more tests — and always the same answer: anemia.
On January 2, her fever rose above 40 degrees. This time she was hospitalized for three weeks at King’s College Hospital, and that was when the truth that no one had looked for before emerged: pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest there is, with only a 3% chance of survival. Sowemimo-Coker underwent 12 hours of surgery and six months of chemotherapy. Today, at 65, she has no detectable cancer in her body. She survived the diagnosis and also the months when no one listened to her.
