Being 14 is hard enough, let alone in the middle of a public health crisis.

So when Liliana “Lili” Castaneda began experiencing strange symptoms in the spring of 2020, her local doctor chalked it up to “ pandemic stress .”

But things only got worse — and it wasn’t all in her head. 6

As it turned out, the Chicago teen was suffering from a rare vaginal cancer almost never seen in girls her age.

“Most of my patients are in their 60s,” said Dr. Dario Roque , a gynecologic oncologist at Northwestern Medicine’s Lurie Cancer Center , who treated Castaneda.

It would be months of pain, confusion and unanswered questions before she finally got the diagnosis that saved her life.

A teen’s search for answers

Castaneda woke up on her 14th birthday to a splotch of red in her underwear.

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