‘Active’ Mom of 2 Had No Symptoms Before Shocking Diagnosis

A woman in England had “no symptoms at all” before a sudden pain in her chest led to a devastating diagnosis.

Sharon Smith, from Liverpool, went to a local emergency room after she began to experience “an agonizing pain in her chest” in April 2023, according to a news release shared by the city’s Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, which is where she was initially treated.

Following blood tests and a bone marrow biopsy, the mother of two was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

“It came as a complete shock,” Smith said, per the news release.

Acute lymphocytic leukemia — also known as acute lymphoblastic leukemia — “is a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow — the spongy tissue inside bones where blood cells are made,” according to the Mayo Clinic.

“The word ‘acute’ in acute lymphocytic leukemia comes from the fact that the disease progresses rapidly and creates immature blood cells, rather than mature ones,” the organization states. 

Smith — who lives with her husband, Paul, and has two sons and a grandson — said she had “no symptoms at all” before the shocking cancer diagnosis.

“We’d just come back from [vacation] where I’d walked the length of Spain and I’d been playing football in the garden with my little grandson the night before I got this pain,” she recalled, per the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre’s news release.

Smith was sent to the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre for chemotherapy following the diagnosis. In November 2023, she then underwent a “stem cell transplant from a donor to help her create healthy new blood cells and reduce the risk of the cancer returning,” according to the news release.

“I felt really good after the stem cell transplant,” Smith said. “I’ve always been on the go, really active and busy, and I felt like my usual self again.”

“I was still coming for regular check-ups at Clatterbridge and, in September 2024, my routine bone marrow biopsy showed I had relapsed and the cancer was back. I just wasn’t expecting it so, as you can imagine, I was completely shocked,” she continued.

“That was a Tuesday and I went home thinking this was the end for me, then on the Friday I got a lovely phone call from the consultant, Dr. Saif, to say he’d been working behind the scenes to try and find another treatment for me and I’d been accepted for CAR-T therapy,” she added, referencing the chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy, which is a highly innovative form of immunotherapy, per the hospital.

According to the American Cancer Society, CAR-T therapy “is a way to get immune cells called T cells (a type of white blood cell) to fight cancer by changing them in the lab so they can find and destroy cancer cells.”

“This type of treatment can be very helpful in treating some types of cancer, even when other treatments are no longer working,” according to the society.

Speaking about being accepted for the treatment, Smith said, “I went from literally the worst time in life to feeling like I’d just won the lottery because there was a little bit of hope there,” per the news release.

Due to CAR-T therapy not being available in Liverpool until the end of 2024, Smith was referred to The Christie in Manchester for her to receive treatment as soon as possible.

She said the approximately 34-mile journey to Manchester was “exhausting,” adding, “We were over and back about 20 times in all for consultations, cell collection, chemotherapy, infusion and follow-up appointments afterwards.”

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Smith also had to stay in the city for three and a half weeks “during the most intensive stage of treatment.” 

Having gone to Manchester to have T cells taken from her blood, Smith’s cells were then taken to a specialist pharmaceutical laboratory to be transformed into a “unique” CAR-T treatment.

She then had to undergo chemotherapy in Manchester to prepare her body before the treatment began.

Despite some side effects, the treatment was successful and Smith “recovered quickly,” according to the hospital’s news release. “Her bone marrow biopsies and blood tests are looking good and she is hopeful for what the future will bring,” per the news release.