When a student is going through medical training, it’s often hard not to get wrapped up in the diseases and symptoms that they are learning about and seeing patients suffer through.

When nursing student Georgie McLennan went to her doctor complaining of pain, he told her she was just being paranoid and it was all in her head.

McLennan appeared beautiful and healthy on the outside, belying her medical condition.

While the medical system is understaffed and overworked, some people, just like McLennan, fall through the cracks.

They are misdiagnosed or dismissed as having nothing wrong with them at all.

Sometimes those situations require much more attention than the patient was given, and McLennan is a perfect example of our failing healthcare system.

When McLennan’s pain became unbearable she went to another doctor who did a scan of her body. What they found was shocking.

Her doctor didn’t think she’d even live to find out the results of the biopsy. McLennan’s body was full of tumors. She was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called Burkitt Lymphoma.

Doctors were certain that McLennan’s fate was most certainly death, but the fighter proved them wrong.

She went through months of chemotherapy and injections into her spine. The painful treatments caused her to lose her hair, but she remained positive and was determined to survive.

It was that fighting, upbeat spirit that likely saved McLennan.

She says that 2017 was an amazing year and she’s sharing her story to gain awareness of the rare cancer she almost fell victim to.

Her new year’s resolution for 2018: not to get cancer again.