28-Year-Old Woman Thought Her ‘Intermittent Heartburn’ Was From Unhealthy Eating Habits, But It Turned Out To Be Aggressive Stomach Cancer: ‘Long Story Short, I Survived”

Stirling, who often takes to TikTok to offer insight into her cancer fight, recently shared a photo of her going through cancer treatment with no hair as a “before” image, and a followup photo of herself smiling with hair, saying “I Survived.”

She wrote, “Why is stomach cancer so deadly? Because symptoms are often vague and mimic other common conditions.

“The key is early detection! Stomach cancer caught at stage 1 has a >90% survival rate.”

In another video, she explained her stomach cancer journey in depth, revealing she was diagnosed with stomach cancer in March 2024, when she was 28 years old after suffering from “ongoing [acid] reflex symptoms” for about a year.

@clostirlingx

Recap on my cancer journey 🎗️ #cancer #stomachcancer #gastriccancer #lifeaftercancer #ayacancer #myjourney

♬ original sound – clo

Stirling continued, “Things just got a little bit worse in November 2023, when I started taking a weight loss medication called Ozempic, medicinally prescribed and everything like that, I just wanted to lose some weight for my wedding which is supposed to be this year, and I just noticed that the reflux was getting a bit worse and I started having pain in my sternum that was going through to my back.

“As soon as I stopped taking the injections that stuff went away, but my [heartburn] was very much intermittent.”

She explained how if she had eaten something greasy or had a few drinks out with friends, her heartburn would worsen. However, she noted that heartburn isn’t always a sign of cancer.

“I didn’t have any other symptoms apart from that,” she said referring to the heartburn. “I wasn’t losing weight, I wasn’t anemic, I didn’t have any blood in my stools or anything like that. I wasn’t vomiting, and my appetite was brilliant.

“The typical symptoms that you see for stomach cancer, I had none of them.”

She ultimately had an endoscopy [a medical procedure in which a doctor uses a thin, flexible tube called an endoscope to view the inside of your body] which revealed an ulcer that was nearly “completely healed.”

Stirling also discovered she was positive for a bacterial infection called Helicobacter pylori, known as H. pylori. After giving medicine and being told to come back in six weeks, her doctors chose to take biopsies.

@clostirlingx

Golden memory today 🔔✨💛🎗️ #cancertok #cancer #chemotherapy #ringthebell #cancersurvivor #cancerfree

♬ inside out theme – Santiago Melo

“So, I was completely blindsided when I got a phone call to say I had signet ring cell adenocarcinoma, which is the most aggressive stomach cancer, and most probably caused by my H. pylori, which I probably have had since I was younger and I didn’t know about it, and I had a lot of genetic testing done and it wasn’t genetic,” she said on TikTok.

In April 2024, she had a staging laparoscopy [a minimally invasive surgical procedure used to determine the stage of the disease] done, revealing she caught the cancer at an early stage and it could be treated through chemotherapy and surgery.

After multiple rounds of chemo and having her stomach completely removed, Stirling, who no longer has a stomach, received the “all-clear” in January 2025, and she’s since been getting checked every three months.

@clostirlingx

Replying to @MissyA hope this helps ☺️ also to add the pain during the ozempic would start epigastric region and radiate to my mid/upper back #cancer #stomachcancer #cancersymptoms

♬ original sound – clo

RELATED: How to Recognize Sneaky Cancer Symptoms — Looking at Cancers That Are Most Often Misdiagnosed

We’re delighted to see Stirling sharing her story and inspiring others to get checked if they have symptoms, as seeing a doctor could be life-saving.

Her story is certainly one to inspire others to fight their best fight and stay positive for the future. She further proved that by sharing some uplifting footage of her in a hot tub this spring, writing, “Life is weird. Yesterday in the [hospital] with abdominal pain and having a CT scan praying my cancer wasn’t back.

“Today, chilling in the hot tub with the most gorgeous hotel … with a clear scan.”

@clostirlingx

Life can really be weird! 🤣

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Understanding Gastric/Stomach Cancer

Gastric cancer, also known as stomach cancer, originates in the stomach. The most common type, called adenocarcinoma, begins in the stomach’s inner lining. Other types of the disease can begin in the middle or outer parts of the stomach, but these are more rare.

Thanks to advanced endoscopic techniques — which allow doctors to insert a thin, lighted tube with a tiny camera on it through the mouth and view the throat, esophagus, stomach, and more — gastric cancers are now frequently caught earlier, which makes treatment easier.

The Staging System for Gastric Cancer — Finding the Right Treatment Plan

Surgery is often the most critical part of the treatment process and can be curative for patients whose cancer is caught at an earlier stage.

Even for those with more advanced cancer, surgery may still be an option to help control symptoms and improve quality of life. There are also some new and innovative treatment options for gastric cancer that has progressed.

Surgery is especially helpful in cases where the disease is localized and has not spread extensively beyond the stomach. The goal of surgery is to remove the cancer, along with part or all of the stomach, depending on how much the cancer has spread. Surgeons aim to ensure that no cancer cells are left behind, which gives patients the best chance at long-term survival.

Surgery for Gastric Cancer: What You Need to Know

For patients whose cancer is at an earlier stage, surgery can often be curative. Surgery may still be an option even for patients with more advanced cancer.

Systemic therapies, like chemotherapy, targeted therapies, and immunotherapy, may also be used. Eligibility for these treatment approaches will depend on several factors, like the stage of the cancer, the patient’s general health, and the results of biomarkers testing.

Meanwhile, when gastric cancer has spread beyond the stomach and surgery is not an option, it’s important to realize that there are still several treatment options and approaches. They just may look a bit different than the approach to more localized cancer.

Dr. Nicholas J Hornstein, a medical oncologist at Northwell Cancer Institute in Manhattan, previously told SurvivorNet that treatment at the advanced stage is a “bit of a marathon” rather than a sprint.

“In advanced cancers, we focus on things a little bit differently. Now it’s a bit of a marathon: we’re trying to sequence therapies in a way to provide patients for the best quality of life for as long as possible,” Dr. Hornstein explains.

“We employ a variety of different systemic therapies. These are treatments that go through the entire body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or targeted therapy. Those are the three major buckets of treatment that I think of when I counsel patients.”

Eligibility for these systemic treatments depends on several factors, including stage of the cancer, previous treatments, biomarkers testing, general health, and allergies, among other factors.

‘A Marathon vs. A Sprint’ — How Treatment for Advanced Gastric Cancer Differs From Early-Stage Disease

Treating Stomach Cancer

The treatment of gastric cancer is a complex process that is tailored to the individual’s specific stage of cancer, overall health, and personal treatment goals. It often involves a multidisciplinary team of specialists, including oncologists, surgeons, gastroenterologists, radiologists, and pathologists, to ensure a comprehensive approach to care.

Surgical Treatment

Surgery is the cornerstone of curative treatment for gastric cancer, particularly in the early stages. The extent of surgery depends on the tumor’s location, size, and stage. The types of surgery include:

• Endoscopic Resection: For very early-stage cancers (T1a) that have not invaded beyond the superficial layers of the stomach lining, endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) or endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) may be performed.
• Partial Gastrectomy: Removal of part of the stomach (subtotal gastrectomy) may be indicated for tumors located in the lower or middle portions of the stomach.
• Total Gastrectomy: For tumors that involve a larger portion of the stomach or are located near the esophagus, the entire stomach may be removed.
• Lymph Node Dissection: The removal of surrounding lymph nodes (lymphadenectomy) is typically performed to ensure the cancer has not spread and to aid in staging.

Chemotherapy

Different types of chemotherapy may be used at different points during treatment, including:

• Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy: Administered before surgery to shrink the tumor and make it easier to remove.
• Adjuvant Chemotherapy: Given after surgery to kill any remaining cancer cells and reduce the risk of recurrence.
• Palliative Chemotherapy: Used in advanced stages to relieve symptoms and improve quality of life when curative treatment is not possible.

Radiation therapy may be used in combination with chemotherapy (chemoradiation) either before surgery to shrink the tumor or after surgery to destroy any remaining cancer cells. It can also be a palliative treatment to relieve symptoms such as pain or bleeding.

Targeted therapy drugs focus on specific abnormalities within cancer cells. For example, trastuzumab (Herceptin) may be used for HER2-positive gastric cancers, which have high levels of the HER2 protein.

Immunotherapy is a newer form of treatment that helps the immune system recognize and attack cancer cells. Drugs like pembrolizumab (Keytruda) may be used for advanced gastric cancer, especially when the cancer has a high level of PD-L1 expression or is MSI-H (microsatellite instability-high).

Avoiding Provider Bias – Is Your Doctor Understanding You?

While your doctor has undergone years of training and practice, they are still human, and may come with their own set of biases that can impact how they treat patients.

To combat these biases and really get the most out of your interactions with your doctor, you should provide her or him with plenty of information about your life and ask plenty of questions when things aren’t clear. To better understand how you should approach conversations with your doctor, we previously spoke with Dr. Dana Chase, gynecologic oncologist at Arizona Oncology.

According to Dr. Chase, physicians, like many of us, can be a bit biased when seeing patients. She made it clear that these biases are rarely sinister, but rather unconscious and more subtle.

She explained, “We have certain beliefs that we don’t know about. We might look, for example, at an older woman, and just by the way she looks we might make certain assumptions, and we might not even know that we’re making these assumptions.”

Let’s Talk About Provider Bias

Clearing up misconceptions is important, but so is understanding what your doctor is telling you, Dr. Chase noted. Overall, she advises women to speak up and ask questions when they don’t understand something.

“It’s never a bad thing to ask for something to be repeated, or to ask the doctors to explain it in different terms.”

So next time you go to your physician, speak up if you need clarity, so your doctor can understand you and you can understand them.

The Importance of Advocating for Yourself

Standing up for yourself is important. If you feel that you’re being dismissed or mistreated by a doctor. Getting a second opinion is crucial if something doesn’t feel right. Experts tell SurvivorNet that no one knows your body better than you, so if you feel like something is wrong, keep pushing for answers.

Dr. Zuri Murrell, a colorectal surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, previously told SurvivorNet that sometimes, patients need to be pushy.

“From a doctor’s perspective, every problem should have a diagnosis, a treatment, a plan for follow-up, and a plan for what happens next if the treatment doesn’t work,” Dr. Murrell said.

And as a patient, “If you don’t feel like each of these four things has been accomplished, just ask! Even if it requires multiple visits or seeing additional providers for a second opinion, always be your own advocate.”

Ultimately, patients advocating for their health can lead to better patient outcomes. This is especially important when you find your doctor has misdiagnosed your symptoms.

A component of advocating for yourself in healthcare includes going back to the doctor multiple times and even getting multiple opinions.

Dr. Steven Rosenberg is the National Cancer Institute Chief of Surgery, and he previously told SurvivorNet about the advantages of getting input from multiple doctors.

Cancer research legend urges patients to get multiple opinions.

“If I had any advice for you following a cancer diagnosis, it would be, first, to seek out multiple opinions as to the best care. Because finding a doctor who is up to the latest of information is important,” Dr. Rosenberg said.

Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff

Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.

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