Karina Ureña thought her abdominal pain was her usual period cramps

When Karina Ureña started feeling abdominal pain, she brushed it off as nothing more than her usual period cramps. Fit, health-conscious, and training for her first half marathon, cancer was the last thing on her mind.

But months later, after the pain worsened and constant nausea took over her life, she received the devastating news: she had stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to her liver, lungs, and ovaries.

“I thought it was just my period,” Karina says. “I was eating clean, running daily, and felt the healthiest I’d ever been. Cancer wasn’t even on my radar.”

Between August and September, Karina travelled to Key West, Maui, and Mexico, three dream destinations that should have been filled with memories of beaches

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