Chelsea’s Bump on Her Temple During Pregnancy Turned Out to Be Leiomyosarcoma

Chelsea was pregnant when she noticed a bump on her temple during dinner with friends. She had been rubbing the spot for weeks, thinking it was a headache. An ultrasound labeled it a swollen lymph node, a local surgeon thought it looked like a cyst, and two weeks of antibiotics did nothing while the bump kept growing. When the biopsy results came back, the answer was leiomyosarcoma (LMS), a rare cancer that grows in smooth muscle found around organs and arteries. Because she was pregnant, the classic warning signs like fatigue and shortness of breath were hidden. The bump was the only clue that couldn’t be explained.

Interviewed by: Taylor Scheib
Edited by: Katrina Villareal

Her local oncologist told her plainly that he had nothing for her. A regional sarcoma specialist admitted he had never seen leiomyosarcoma and recommended waiting. That’s when Chelsea filled out an online form at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas; they called her back the same day. After reviewing her scans and tissue, their team said the tumor was high-grade and already stage 3, and surgery needed to happen right away.

Today, Chelsea is continuing chemotherapy, exploring functional medicine alongside her oncology team, and sharing her experience openly on social media. Her faith anchors her. As she puts it, “I’m not going to let the cancer kill my personality. I’m going to keep looking up.”

Watch Chelsea’s video or read the edited transcript of her interview to find out more about her story:

• A second opinion changed Chelsea’s entire treatment plan. Her regional sarcoma specialist had never seen leiomyosarcoma and recommended waiting, while UT MD Anderson reviewed her scans and tissue before she even arrived and said surgery needed to happen immediately.
• Pregnancy hid every classic warning sign. Fatigue, shortness of breath, and joint pain all felt like part of carrying a child, so the only clue Chelsea had was a bump she could see and feel.
• Patient communities taught Chelsea more than search engines did. She tells people who are newly diagnosed not to Google leiomyosarcoma, and she credits Facebook support groups with teaching her how other patients actually experience treatment.
• Chelsea calls her rare cancer diagnosis a wake-up call, and she has decided who she wants to be inside it.

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Chelsea’s Diagnosis Facts

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This is not medical advice. Please consult with your healthcare provider to make informed treatment decisions.

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When I first noticed the bump on my temple

When I first noticed it, it was a crazy scenario. I was having dinner with some friends, and I was laughing so hard that all of a sudden, I felt a temple headache. I had felt it for a while, so I’d be doing temple rubs, and it was stinging. My mom was watching my kids, so when I got home, I asked her, “Do you see this bump?” I could feel it. And she said, “Oh my goodness, that’s definitely a bump. You need to go get that checked out.”

I went to a local doctor, who ordered an ultrasound. She said, “It could be a bacterial issue. You could have an infection that’s causing the bump.” The ultrasound results came back as a swollen lymph node. They said, “We probably need this biopsied,” so I went to our local general surgeon. We only have one in our small town.

He looked at it and said, “Let’s do antibiotics first, because I don’t want to cut into you when it’s just a bacterial issue.” He had me on antibiotics for about two weeks. Within that time, I could see it grow. Thankfully, my friends pushed me: You need to get in there quicker. I was actually pregnant at the time.

My pregnancy hid every warning sign

All of the typical symptoms of cancer, like fatigue, shortness of breath, or joint pain, were out the window for me because I was pregnant. I experienced them all the time because I was carrying a child, so I didn’t have any of the typical signs other than the bump on my head.

I contacted my OB, told him what was going on, and asked him if it was normal for lymph nodes to act up when you’re pregnant. He said, “No, probably not to that extent, but I’m friends with the local surgeon, so I will text him.” I said, “Oh my goodness, thank you, God.” It’s all about the people you know, especially in any circumstance, but a definite small-town perk is that everyone kind of knows everyone. If you can get an in, it gets things a little bit quicker.

My OB messaged the surgeon and got me in sooner. He went ahead and did the whole surgery, and then he came back and said, “Well, I think it’s a cyst. It looked more like a cyst and it felt like a cyst. I’ll still send it in. Don’t worry about it.” All that jazz. A week goes by and I don’t hear anything. Then another week goes by and he finally calls me and said, “We got the results back.”

Getting the call and finding out it’s cancer

“It’s cancer. It’s a sarcoma. Now, we haven’t heard what type of sarcoma it is, because there are over 100 subtypes.” Since we’re in a small town, they had to ship the tissue, so they were waiting to hear back. Finally, it came back as leiomyosarcoma.

He referred me to the local oncologist; we only have one. When I met with him, he immediately said, “I have nothing for you. I don’t see any sarcomas, but we do have a sarcoma center at KU Med,” which was about two hours away. I scheduled an appointment and they’re booked about a week out.

In the meantime, I was my own advocate. I researched online about leiomyosarcoma and it’s not a pretty sight to see. Honestly, it’s pretty scary. Most of the time, when I meet people who have the same diagnosis, the first thing I say is, “Don’t Google it. Do not Google it. It’s so unknown a disease because of how rare it is that Googling it will be like, ‘Oh, you’re going to die. That’s pretty much all it says.’” Surgery is the number one method of treatment. Chemotherapy could work, but it could also not.

I looked up UT MD Anderson, because I knew that they were a huge cancer center. I sent them a message and they called me the same day after I filled out an online form. That alone was impressive. I was so thankful, because most hospitals take time. They immediately got back to me and booked me. It was two weeks out, so I thought, “Okay, I’ll go to KU Med first, then I’ll get my second opinion at UT MD Anderson.”

Seeing a specialist who had never seen my cancer

I met the doctor at KU Med, who’s a sarcoma specialist, and he said, “I have only seen one sarcoma on the head. I have never seen leiomyosarcoma.” That was a hard thing to hear, because you want your specialist to know everything.

He said that since I was pregnant and they already did the biopsy that took out my tumor, the biopsy only took out no surrounding tissue, 0.02 millimeters of tissue, so normally that’s probably not what you would want to see. But they weren’t afraid of it. They said, “Oh, if it comes back, it’ll come back in the same spot. You’re pregnant. We’ll wait until it comes back, and then we’ll do a full body scan.”

Little did I know then that this type of cancer is most often found in the uterus. I’m pregnant, so that has me scared for my baby and myself. Besides ultrasounds to see if the baby’s okay, there was nothing I could do. Honestly, it made a lot of sense at the time.

The second opinion that changed everything

We went to UT MD Anderson, which was about an 11-hour drive. We left our two children at home. On the way there, we thought, “I bet they’re going to say the same thing. At least we’re getting a second opinion, but they’ll say the same thing, and then we’ll be back to where we were.”

As soon as we arrived and met them, they looked over the scans. They looked at the tissue. They had done their research on me already. They said, “We need to do surgery. We need to go back in. We need to get the surrounding tissue. This isn’t a wait scenario, because of how fast it grew.”

The tissue sample that they took was high grade, so it’s fast-growing. It was already stage 3 because of that degree of growth. Knowing that leiomyosarcoma typically starts in the uterus, because they found evidence of uterus in the tumor, they said that it more than likely started there. Then what else is happening down there?

Undergoing surgery while pregnant, then the wait

They went ahead and performed the surgery. I had to go to Memorial Hermann for my main surgery, because they had OBs on staff to monitor the baby during the whole procedure. I had a huge team. Since I was pregnant, we had to wait. Once I delivered, I could do a full body scan. Waiting was pretty hard. I spent most of the time praying. I’m so thankful for the community that I had to help me along the way, because I had to miss a lot of work.

The scans came back clear. Now, that being said, I never did a PET scan. I only did a trunk CT, because that’s all my small town had to offer. They didn’t want me traveling postpartum with a newborn to Houston to do a PET scan. I did no other testing.

Since my tumor was high grade, my scans would be every three months. They stuck to the head and neck, because I was with a head and neck oncologist at the time. Not even leiomyosarcoma, but a sarcoma head and neck specialist. But they only did head and neck.

Finding a new lump near my pelvis

In February 2026, I discovered a little lump around my pelvis area. It felt like a cyst, but I could tell that it was growing. I went straight to my OB, even though I wasn’t pregnant at the time. He’s a great guy. He said, “Oh, I can do the surgery to take that out.” He went ahead and did it for me, and it came back as leiomyosarcoma.

We weren’t surprised because this type of cancer returns very easily and very quickly. It’s not hereditary. There’s no proven reason why it happens, which is why it’s so hard to detect: the symptoms are also very mild. Unless you can visually feel or see the tumor, you’re not going to find it other than by chance when you do a scan, which I’ve heard happens a lot, especially with people who had to have a hysterectomy. When that happened, my husband and I were on our way back to Houston.

The scan that showed it everywhere

They switched from my oncologist to an actual leiomyosarcoma specialist who was already at UT MD Anderson. Why I wasn’t with her in the beginning, I do not know. We were of the mindset of, “Okay, if it spreads, we do chemo. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the last one. We don’t know.” Because the full body scan that I had done in the past was clear, that we know of.

When I did the scan, it was everywhere. It was in my elbow, my back, my pelvis, my abdomen, my bones, my thighs, my liver, my lungs, my thyroid… it was everywhere. Honestly, at first, I was overwhelmed. They said that surgery wasn’t an option because there were too many. They wanted to try chemotherapy because it has shown some progress over the past 10 years, as they’ve discovered the doxorubicin and trabectedin combination.

Doxorubicin is commonly known as the Red Devil and trabectedin is linked with smooth muscle tissue cancer, which is what I have. They use it in combination and do six cycles. Hopefully, as long as they see progress, they’ll stay on that. They take off doxorubicin at the sixth cycle and continue with trabectedin as monotherapy for the rest of the year. Then they reevaluate.

Asking for the backup plan

I’m the type of person who asks, “What if this happens? What are my backup plans?” I need to know the backup scenarios. It felt like they refused to tell me. That was the hardest thing going into that process. They said, “We need to try this first, and then we will discuss.” I wanted to know what the next step was if it didn’t work. They were probably thinking I was crazy, because I needed to know the backup plan for if this doesn’t work.

Because online, I’m part of a lot of Facebook support groups. There was a lot of talk: “Is this working for you? Is this not working for you? Oh, I switched this chemo, now I’m on to this chemo.” It was overwhelming. I feel so knowledgeable because of those support groups. I learned so much, way more than I would if I researched online myself. It’s way more than Googling. I got on those and would ask questions.

The brain stenosis that put chemotherapy on hold

At first, I fought the chemotherapy because I felt like God would give me the answers that I needed to fight it myself, because chemo wasn’t a 100% cure. During the chemo process, they do a lot of tests. They do a lot of heart tests to make sure that your heart is capable of withstanding the doxorubicin. I also got a brain MRI as well. It turned out that I have stenosis on the right side of my brain, which is narrowing. It was crazy to see, so they were scared of that.

From there, they wanted me to start chemo immediately, because I was high grade. But in the meantime, they had a meeting with the whole group. My neurologist said, “You cannot start chemo without me doing more tests on her.” When I heard that, honestly, I said, “Thank you, God.” I wasn’t ready to start chemo. I think He knew that I needed more time to come to terms with it or do some research and look into it.

As a cancer patient, I feel like we’re constantly pushed to go, go, go. There’s no other option for you but chemo, so we needed to do it now. There’s no waiting. I felt like I needed the calm. I needed the wait. When my oncologist called me, they were so defeated. They said, “I’m so sorry. We can’t start chemo. This is so horrible. I’m sorry that we have to wait.” But honestly, I was praising Jesus the whole time.

Three weeks of fasting, praying, and research

When that happened, I didn’t end up going back for another scan before the first round of chemo for about three weeks. During those three weeks, I met with the neurologist, did the test, and everything turned out fine. It turned out that my brain adapted and made its vessels around, so that’s baffling. I also took that time to fast, pray, and meditate on what to do.

I felt like the internet is a good way and a bad way of learning about these things, because you do learn. There’s so much out there to do. But what’s good? What’s going to work for me? That’s the hardest part about being a cancer patient. There are so many different routes that you could take, but which one’s going to work for your specific type of tumor is the hardest.

During that time, I did everything. I juiced. I cut out sugar. I did all the things you could think about. When I went back for my scan, it showed mild growth to no growth. In my mind, I thought, “I’m doing something right. Okay, it’s not growing. This is great.” I think I should have just stuck with the route I was going, with the fasting, the no sugar, the eating right, and the praying.

Because when I switched to thinking that it’s a mission, I switched to me trying hyperbaric chamber, red light therapy, and all these other things. It’s almost causing me more stress, because I’m putting it on myself to do these things without any knowledge of anything.

Choosing chemotherapy for my children

When I came back, I thought, “Okay, I’m going to start chemo if it’s growing.” Because my family also thinks I’m procrastinating. My dad passed away from lung cancer and my nephew passed away with leukemia. Both of those felt very toxic, knowing about chemotherapy and how hard it was on them and their quality of life, honestly.

I didn’t want my children to watch me suffer that way. That was my main reasoning. I know how hard chemo can be. If I’m going to die because this cancer isn’t cured by chemo, why would I even do it? Why shouldn’t I keep living healthy and alive? This cancer doesn’t cause any symptoms. I wasn’t feeling pain or anything. I felt fine. Why would I do chemo if it’s going to make me sick? When I went back, it had grown, so I started the chemo. I learned a lot.

Fasting before chemotherapy and doing cold plunges at dawn

Now I switched my mindset to how to help the chemo hopefully work, because if it doesn’t work, then I’m out of luck. I learned that you can fast before chemo, so that’s what I’ve been doing. Honestly, I feel like it’s worked immensely, because a lot of the time, on my Facebook group pages, everyone’s talking about their side effects: how horrible it is, how they can’t get out of bed, and all this stuff.

I’m a huge advocate of fasting. I’ve also started doing cold plunges in the morning. People think I’m crazy for doing that. It also wakes me up. Honestly, I feel like that has been my motivation to wake up in the morning. I don’t run like I used to, so I’m not doing my adrenaline junkie stuff anymore, but I can sit in 40-degree water for two minutes, so I’ve been doing that.

My most recent scans showed that my tumors are shrinking, so I know that the chemo is working. If I’m helping it along, then great. If not and it’s doing it on its own, then so be it. But I’m not going to sit idle. I’m going to do whatever I can to help it along, because I have children to live for.

Three years and why I’m not okay with that

My oncologist told me I had three years, maybe less if I don’t do chemo. Chemo will grant me one more extra year of life. I thought, “Why would I do chemo if it only gives me one extra year?” I thought of three years and how old my children will be. I’m not okay with that, so I’m doing it for them. I’m not scared of dying, because I know the greatness of heaven, but I want my children to be ready for heaven, and I want to help get them there, and to be with my husband along the way.

Thinking about my husband without me, how will the house run? What’s going to happen? They’re going to move in with his parents. They’ll have to live with grandma and grandpa. I do it for my children. That’s the best way to have motivation. But also, you have to have motivation for yourself. You can’t be like, “Oh, I have cancer,” so you stop living.

Yes, you have cancer. But shouldn’t that be a motivation to live more? To live to the fullest and to do what you can now, because you don’t know what the future will bring? My nephew had been cured of cancer from the chemo, but he got sick while on chemo and passed away. You never know what’s going to happen in these situations. Only God knows.

Why it’s important to move

What are you going to do? You feel fatigued after chemo, but are you going to lay in bed all day? No. Get up and go walk. Go walk around the block. I don’t care what you do, but move. I honestly believe that helps with your side effects. Just move, regardless of how that looks.

I’m thankful I have children to chase, because if I didn’t, maybe I would be on Netflix the whole time. I haven’t sat down since I started my chemo cycles, so I think I go, go, go. I pray that the chemo will keep working. Now that they know that the chemo is working, I’ll stick with that plan.

One picky tumor and a wake-up call

I have one tumor that’s being picky and doesn’t want to cooperate. It’s so funny, because right before my PET scan, I was literally praying. I said, “Okay, God, if you can take away all of my tumors and leave one, but make sure it doesn’t spread, keep one. I will be happy. I will literally have it as a reminder to always be thankful and to look to you.”

I do feel like having cancer was a wake-up call for me, honestly. What am I doing with my life? How am I spoiling it on worldly things and not doing more for my community and more for Him, and living joyfully and living in love? That’s been my mantra this whole time. I’m not going to let cancer kill my personality. I’m going to keep looking up.

With that being said, I’ll do the whole chemo. They talked about radiation for that one. But I have a lot of people on social media reaching out to me about different ways and different things. That’s nice, because I did schedule a consultation with a functional medicine oncologist to explore my options.

Learning about my body: Blood work, supplements, and Diet

There’s definitely a reason I have cancer. I don’t know what it is specifically, but when I learned that, I definitely went straight to a functional medicine doctor to do blood work. I went through that process before chemo. It was eye-opening. She came back saying I had bacteria in my intestines. She gave me a list of about 10 supplements. Of course, I brought it to my oncologist, and she said, “Well, you can only take half of these.” I thought half was better than nothing.

I experienced chronic constipation since college, but from doing those supplements, I’m now regular. I cut out carbs. I switched to all-organic. I was more hyper aware of my body and what I’m ingesting. I feel like everyone should be, but we’re not.

Coming out from under a rock

I do believe that living in Kansas made me feel like I lived under a rock. I was definitely oriented towards, “It’s not my problem, so I’m going to ignore the world’s problems and live my life.” When this hit, I thought, “Okay, what am I doing?” Because honestly, everyone said I was the last person they would expect to have cancer. I work out regularly. I ate all the vegetables. I was extremely healthy. When I looked at that, I was curious: What am I doing?

How I’ve adjusted my mindset through cancer

I feel like I’ve always had this attitude. I’ve definitely had my down moments in life. I feel like everyone has their depressing stages. I had postpartum depression with two of my babies. When I had Melody, who was with me during my cancer journey, I was so scared for her to be hurt because I didn’t know if the tumors were attacking my uterus.

When she was born healthy, I was overwhelmed. But now I had the stress of having a newborn and my hormones were hijacked. I was told that I needed to make sure I was feeling for lumps and bumps, because that’s the only way I would be able to detect this cancer, while also having scans every three months. It brought on depression and overwhelming anxiety.

I felt like I was turning so far away from God. Why am I feeling like this? I should be more joyful, because I don’t have cancer and my baby is healthy, but I was overwhelmed with the stress and anxiety. It was a full year before I came out of that hormonal depression and postpartum. When Melody was one, I was finally feeling like myself. I was finally coming back. Then it hit me again. I got diagnosed again.

I could have been angry at God. I definitely could have been like, “Are you kidding me? I just got over this. I was trying to be better. I was happy, healthy, and exercising again. I was feeling more like myself. And then you had to do this to me.” I honestly didn’t have that reaction at all.

I felt like God needed me to get my act back together so that he could show me what I could do next. He needed me to have cancer so that I could help others and spread His name, because He has been with me this entire time. I honestly feel like if I didn’t believe in Him, I would be 10 times more scared and 10 times more anxious. I would be like, “Death is in sight.”

But when you have that faith in God, He did carry me throughout this entire journey. It’s so reassuring. When I post videos about my cancer journey and everything that I’ve been doing, it’s all been because He has made that path so much easier for me. If I fought it, I don’t know where I would be.

Sharing openly and choosing joy through cancer

I choose joy. I can’t wallow, because I feel like your mindset is a huge healing power. If you feel like you’re going to die, you’re going to die. I need to make sure that I’m never feeling low. I definitely have those moments, but it’s not necessarily sadness. I think more about other people’s views when I die than I do myself, because I know that I’ll be fine, but it’s more about how their reaction will be.

When I see my friends or any random person who will come up to me and ask how I’m doing with sadness in their eyes, I feel for them. But then I’m also like, “I’m good. I feel fine. How are you?” Honestly, I switch the conversation, because I’m fine. I’m doing great. I’m still here. It’s summer, so it’s hot. The kids are running around everywhere. I’m living my mom life right now.

I like to switch the conversation more onto other people, but it’s also eye-opening, because other people have things they’re working with. It’s not just me. Everyone has some trial happening. No one is living this happy life. Everyone has a trial. How I view my trial changes the whole dynamic. I choose to live happily and know that cancer is going to be a part of me. If this tumor wants to hang out, then that’s fine. He’s not bothering anyone.

My advice is to pray openly and to not push people away

Honestly, pray and pray openly. Even if you don’t know how to pray, talk to God. That’s probably my hugest thing. And try not to push people away. There will be a lot of people who might not reach out, because they don’t know what to say. Don’t be offended by people for not reaching out, because they too are scared that they might say the wrong thing. I notice that a lot with other people.

Love and give love. Choose happiness. Try not to overthink anything. Stress is a huge part of cancer, and yeah, it’s easier said than done to not feel the stressful anxiety that you have. You live in fear constantly that it will come back. It will always be there. Be thankful every day that you have and make the most of it. Is this going to bring me happiness for a moment, or is it going to carry me to eternity? Our happiness here is dwindling if we don’t end up in heaven. Live in happiness and joy, honestly, and try not to be a Debbie Downer to people.

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This interview has been edited for clarity and length. The views and opinions expressed in this interview do not necessarily reflect those of The Patient Story. This content does not replace professional medical advice.

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