Molly, 20, felt numbness in her hands – then came the terrifying news | World

In the summer of 2022, Molly Smith, a 20-year-old from the United States, visited a doctor after experiencing numbness in her hands and feet.

“They said I might be dehydrated and that I should drink a lot of salts, which I did,” Molly says.

But it didn't help. Instead, the numbness got worse.

“It was very scary to go from one day feeling as comfortable as possible to having no feeling in my hands and feet,” Molly says. “I wanted answers.”

“very strange”

Doctors eventually diagnosed Molly with ovarian cancer.

“It was a complete shock to me and my entire family,” Molly says. “No one in our family had ever had cancer at such a young age.”

Confusingly, the numbness did not appear to have any direct connection to the cancer, which Molly describes as “very strange.” The numbness later went away before she had surgery to treat the cancer.

“One doctor said our bodies can create symptoms to show something is wrong, and then the symptoms go away. That’s exactly what happened to me. But there’s no way to prove the numbness was due to cancer,” Molly says.

She has been cancer free for a year now.

“I'm doing really well now,” Molly says.