In 2016, during the final stretch of her pregnancy, Michelle Hughes began feeling a constant ache under her right rib. Like many women in their third trimester, she chalked it up to normal pregnancy discomfort. To be safe, her doctor recommended an ultrasound to check for possible gallbladder problems. The gallbladder looked fine — but the scan uncovered something unexpected: a liver hemangioma, a non-cancerous cluster of blood vessels.
Her doctors assured her it was nothing to worry about, and Michelle turned her attention to welcoming her first daughter, Juliet. Life went on. She later had another daughter, Adeline, and pursued a meaningful career in social work, occasionally noticing the same nagging side pain. Follow-up scans showed no change, and over time, she thought little of it.
Then, in 2021, everything shifted.
Expecting her third child, a boy named Hatton, Michelle faced a late-pregnancy complication. He was delivered safely at 35 weeks via emergency birth, and she returned home to rest. But just days later, Michelle collapsed in front of her children.
At the hospital, doctors made a chilling discovery: tumors had spread to her lungs, and new growths appeared on her liver. A biopsy brought devastating news — she had Stage 4 epithelioid hemangioendothelioma (EHE), a rare and aggressive vascular cancer that often goes undetected until it’s advanced.
