Kelsey Stokstad, a stay-at-home mom from Madison, Wisconsin, was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor after doctors initially dismissed the terrifying tingling in her arm as simple anxiety. This is a truly awful situation that shows how critical it is to push for further testing when symptoms don’t make sense.
When Stokstad, 32, first started feeling numbness and tingling in her left hand and arm, she thought it was a serious heart issue and headed straight to the emergency room. She said the symptoms confusingly stopped right when she arrived. Doctors concluded the issue was anxiety-related and sent her home with a prescription for beta blockers. Stokstad wasn’t convinced, noting that she feels this is “a common misdiagnosis for women.”
We have heard our fair share of doctors misdiagnosing due to not paying attention, but this kind of thing shouldn’t happen. The beta blockers didn’t help at all because the numbness and tingling continued. This persistent feeling should have been a huge red flag that the initial diagnosis was wrong, but the symptoms lasted for four frustrating months, according to NY Post.
Cancer was ignored for what could have been too long
The situation escalated dramatically in August 2023. Stokstad was working alone when she noticed the tingling starting to “radiate towards my leg” while she was on the phone with her husband, Sean. The next thing she knew, she was on the floor after suffering a grand mal seizure. She was completely confused when she came around. Her husband, 33, rushed her to Meriter Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin.
A CAT scan quickly revealed a serious problem: a 4cm mass on her brain. This is where the real diagnosis came to light. Doctors told Stokstad that the initial numbness and tingling she had been experiencing were actually small seizures caused by the tumor pressing on her brain. That must have been a shocking revelation.
Just a few days later, on August 17, 2023, Stokstad underwent a craniotomy. Surgeons were able to remove an incredible 98 percent of the tumor, which Stokstad called “incredible.”
The biopsy results came back in September 2023, confirming the devastating diagnosis: brain cancer. She had a grade 3 astrocytoma. Stokstad was understandably in shock, and her immediate thought was of her three-year-old daughter, Raya. She said she was thinking of her daughter and how she “didn’t want her to grow up without a mom.”
The initial prognosis was brutally difficult to hear, giving her only three to five years. Thankfully, a further biopsy offered a huge ray of hope. The astrocytoma had an IDH1 mutation, which means it’s less aggressive and slower growing. Because of this mutation, her prognosis jumped to 12 to 15 years. Stokstad said that when they heard that revised number, they were “so happy.”
Stokstad finished her intense treatment regimen of 33 rounds of radiotherapy and 12 rounds of chemotherapy in January 2025. She says her scans have been stable since then, though she has experienced some swelling.
It is not easy to become a doctor or keep the career, but getting misdiagnosed or just treated poorly make it hard to trust doctors. She now needs to undergo an MRI every four months to monitor the cancer’s growth. Her next scan is scheduled for December 8, 2025. If that scan comes back stable, she and Sean have exciting plans to start IVF and grow their family early next year.
Published: Dec 3, 2025 10:05 am