Leesa Bradley woke up one morning several years ago sobbing from the excruciating pain in the center of her back.
“Mom, you have to come get me and take me to the hospital,” she told her mother over the phone.
A couple of months before, she had gone to the doctor because of swollen lymph nodes under her arm and was referred to a specialist. But she had put that visit off.
Her family took her to the emergency room that Saturday but after several hours decided to go home and come back Monday.
When she was finally admitted into the hospital the doctor told her family that the lymph nodes needed to be tested for cancer, something she dismissed.