Seen, heard, and healing at Baptist Health Corbin

For more than a year, Lynn McGeorge felt invisible. 

An outspoken, hard-working special education teacher from Pineville, Kentucky, Lynn is not someone who gives up easily – not on her students, and certainly not on her own health. But after more than twelve months of emergency room visits, tests, transfusions, and dead ends, she was worn down. Each visit ended with the same question: What’s wrong with me? 

“Looking back, I wish I had done things differently,” Lynn said. I wish I would have advocated more for myself in the beginning, but I didn't know.” 

Lynn's journey began in the summer of 2023 with episodes of lightheadedness and fainting. When she collapsed in September and lost consciousness for several minutes, her husband rushed her to the hospital. Her hemoglobin was critically low. She received blood and was sent home, but no answers came. 

Over the months, the episodes grew more intense, accompanied by extreme fatigue, dark stools, and the terrifying sense that something serious was being overlooked. She received seven iron transfusions and even underwent a gynecological procedure that worsened her condition. Still, doctors dismissed her concerns. 

“I went back to the ER and begged them to help me,” Lynn recalled. “I cried telling them, ‘I'm never sick. There’s something wrong with me.’ The doctor said, ‘I see you have anxiety on your records. I think you're just anxious.’ He tried to give me pain medicine, and I tried to tell him I wasn’t in pain.” 

It was then, in her most vulnerable moment, that Lynn found the strength to seek something better. 

“That's when I went to Baptist Health Corbin,” Lynn said. “They gave me blood right there in the ER. They did a CT scan with contrast within an hour. By the time an hour and a half had passed, they had found the mass in my colon.” 

Stage 2C colon cancer – meaning it had grown more deeply into nearby tissue. 

All the signs – anemia, dark stool and fatigue – had pointed to it. But no one had taken the time to look until now. 

Lynn had surgery the very next morning and stayed in the hospital for 11 days to fight a serious infection. But for the first time in more than a year, she was on the path to healing – physically and emotionally. 

“The staff was exceptional,” Lynn said. “They were so vigilant about my care.”  

Because of the support of generous donors, Baptist Health Corbin was able to offer Lynn the full spectrum of care she desperately needed: surgery, mental health counseling, and even insurance navigation. The oncology-hematology department explained every step of her treatment, coordinated follow-up care, and ensured she never felt alone in the fight of her life. 

“They offered services I didn’t even know I needed” Lynn said. “You never think you're going to get cancer at 47. But we were so comforted by the fact that they had a plan – even at the hospital with the colostomy bag. They came in and did a class with my husband and I on how to care for the stoma. They showed my husband how to put it on, how to take it off. They sent me home with tons of supplies, and when I got home from the hospital, they had everything at home waiting. They really took care of us.” 

Today, Lynn gets routine scans every three months and continues follow-up care at Baptist Health Corbin, where she knows her concerns will be heard and her health will be taken seriously. 

She often thinks about how a simple CT scan could have changed her entire experience – sparing her a year of uncertainty and pain. And while she can’t go back, she shares her story in hopes of helping others advocate for themselves and find care that listens.

“If the other hospital had just done a CT scan, they could have caught it,” Lynn said. “It wouldn't have changed if I had cancer, but it would have changed what I went through. That’s the first thing they did at Corbin, and I’m so glad they did.”