Natasha Allen looks at the world through heart shaped lenses -- quite literally. Complementing the 27 year old's glasses in her daily outfits is an accessory most don't have: a portable oxygen machine that aids in her breathing as she battles cancer. Fighting against stage four synovial sarcoma, Allen says she knows that the typical image of a cancer patient is not someone who looks like her.
"I think the image of a cancer patient is an old, an older person who's frail," Allen said in an interview with Dr. Darien Sutton, ABC News' medical correspondent. "People don't think like 'oh, cancer,' then think of someone that looks like me.
But right now that image is changing." Synovial sarcoma is a rare type of cancer that is often found in the arm, leg, or foot, and near joints such as the wrist or ankle and usually affects younger adults, according to the National Cancer Institute. Allen was first diagnosed with the rare and aggressive disease on July 28, 2020.
She says she drove herself to the doctor's office that morning expecting normal results from a post knee-surgery biopsy. Allen said she remembers the room being cold and gray when her doctor told her that she had a tumor. "I asked him, like, what kind of tumor? And he said synovial sarcoma, Google it.
And he said that with no emotion, not looking at me," Allen said. "When you hear cancer, you think death right away, even if you don't want to and I just kept on thinking I am 23. I'm 23 like this is not supposed to happen to.
