‘COVID saved my life’: Mom of 4 says virus helped doctors find cancerous tumors

PHOENIX (KTVK/KPHO/Gray News) - An Arizona mother credits COVID-19 with saving her life, saying a positive test for the virus helped her get a cancer diagnosis.

Tena Hughes, a mother of four, has always been active, hiking and working out with friends and family. She even planned a last-minute adventure to go on an African safari with a friend in January 2021, AZ Family reports.

But on the day of departure, she tested positive for COVID-19 and wasn’t allowed to go.

Two weeks later, Hughes went to the emergency room, complaining of headaches. That’s when a doctor found several cancerous tumors all over her body, including her brain, lung and spleen, and scheduled surgery for the next day.

“I told him about my trip and how I was supposed to go to Uganda to see the gorillas, and that’s when he said, ‘You know what, COVID saved your life,’” Hughes said. “He said, ‘If you would have gotten on that plane, by the time you got to altitude, you would have died.’”

Eight surgeries and three years later, Hughes is still on the road to recovery, and it hasn’t been easy. At times, she said the pain was so bad that she felt like giving up, but the 54-year-old mother knew she had to keep fighting for her four sons.

“I had one of them visit me in the hospital, and he just said, ‘Mom, promise me you’ll keep waking up.’ So, I just keep waking up,” Hughes said.

Doctors believe Hughes likely had the late-stage melanoma tumors for a year and a half without knowing it. She never imagined testing positive for COVID would help her figure out what was wrong with her.

“I was so lucky that I planned that trip spontaneously, and I was so lucky that I tested positive for COVID,” Hughes said. “There’s so many things that could have gone so very wrong, but everything keeps going right for me.”

It turns out Hughes’ COVID-19 diagnosis wasn’t the only time the stars have aligned to save her life.

A few months ago, Honor Health started offering a new cancer therapy that specifically targets melanoma. Hughes was one of the first patients to be successfully treated.

“By the time her cancer had come back after her most recent surgery, it really aligned when we were able to start offering this treatment,” said Dr. Justin Moser, an associate clinical investigator with Honor Health Research Institute. “That allowed us to start manufacturing cells very early so that we could get her on therapy and get her treated. Thankfully, she is one of 30% of the patients having a great response so far.”

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