Couple from Massachusetts are diagnosed with cancer within FOUR MONTHS of each other reveal details of shared struggle

Lynn Tidlund Weeden was going about her life as usual, running her home daycare in Massachusetts and spending time with her family when she noticed small changes in her health.

She had night sweats, stomach pains and didn’t feel well, so she went to the local hospital to get checked out, she said in a TikTok.

After doctor visits and tests, Ms. Weeden discovered she had advanced non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in March 2022. She was immediately devastated and shocked, but soon she would no longer be alone in her fight .

Just four months later, her husband Bill received similar devastating news when he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.

Over the past two years, the couple, married in October 2022 after 11 years together, have fought through chemotherapy sessions, bone marrow transplants and experimental immunotherapies, while managing to support each other.

When Lynn first went to her local hospital, doctors performed a CT scan and medical imaging revealed that a huge lump had invaded her spleen.

They immediately referred her to a larger hospital for treatment.

After a week of tests, they discovered the mother of three had stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is a common form of the disease, with more than 81,000 Americans diagnosed each year. It affects parts of your body where lymphatic tissue is located, such as around your chin, armpits, and groin.

When detected and treated early, people with NHL are 73% more likely than healthy people to live the next five years, according to the American Cancer Society.

But if the cancer is more advanced, as it was in Lynn’s case, the survival rate drops to 58 percent.

Lynn immediately began treatment which consisted of six months of chemotherapy.

However, in June 2022, doctors discovered that chemotherapy was not effective against his disease.

A scan revealed that Lynn’s spleen was about eight times larger than it should be. A normal spleen weighs about 6 ounces, but Lynn’s weighed three pounds. So her doctors said she needed to have it surgically removed.

The spleen filters toxins from your blood and helps you fight infections, wrote Dr. Elise Merchant and Dr. Wendy Stead for Harvard Health.

Since other organs in the body, such as the kidneys and liver, perform similar functions, it is possible to live without a spleen.

But you may be at greater risk for serious complications from infections that other people can easily fight off, such as pneumonia, Dr. Merchant and Stead wrote.

Doctors told Lynn’s family that she would undergo approximately six hours of surgery. But eight hours after opening Lynn, they discovered the fatty tumor had wrapped itself around her diaphragm, so they had to call in a specialist surgeon to reconstruct the area.

“I came out of surgery in the worst pain I have ever felt. I had chest tubes. It was just horrible, it was horrible,” she said.

After that, things were clear for a few weeks. But in late July, Bill began vomiting blood, Lynn said.

Lynn and Bill were diagnosed with cancer four months apart

Recalling Lynn’s cancer journey, the construction worker went to hospital and was diagnosed with a rare leukemia after a series of tests. Lynn did not specify the form or stage of the illness she was diagnosed with.

Bill was transferred from their local hospital to the Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston and immediately underwent an “intensive regimen” of chemotherapy as he embarked on the search for a bone marrow donor.

Although Bill’s exact diagnosis is unclear, in general, adults who treat their leukemia early enough are 65 percent as likely as healthy people to live the next five years.

About 62,000 people are diagnosed with leukemia each year and 23,600 die from it, according to the ACS.

Besides chemotherapy, one of the most effective treatments for leukemia is bone marrow transplantation. For months, it looked like Bill would remain among the 7,500 Americans waiting for a matching donor.

But just before Christmas, he found someone willing to donate to him and the transplant took place in January.

Since then, Bill has continued his chemotherapy treatments and had to travel back and forth to Boston almost daily for months. As a result, he was fired from his construction job, resulting in the couple losing their insurance coverage.

In the years since their initial diagnosis, Lynn and Bill both stopped working, costing them medical bills running into the hundreds of thousands. Lynn shared in a GoFund Me.

They are unable to pay their bills and fear losing their homes.

But even in the face of this adversity, Lynn said they continue to fight together: “This is the beginning of our journey, we are still fighting.

“We are struggling, none of us are working and it has been very, very hard for us. We are afraid of losing our house, the one we have worked for all our lives. I never wanted to ask for help people.

However, their treatment continues.

Weeden said she is currently undergoing an experimental form of cancer treatment, called CAR-T therapy, which uses the body’s immune system as a weapon against cancer.

Bill is also still in treatment.

Through it all, they got to know each other. But in her TikTok, Lynn shared that the couple’s journey hasn’t been easy.

“Being our support system for each other, which was difficult many days because we were very frustrated with each other, but we held on,” Lynn shared.

However, despite the stress of their debilitating illnesses and the resulting financial difficulties, they find comfort in each other and in their faith.

Lynn added: “There is a God. Keep your strength to keep your faith, he is with you.