It ‘Took 15 ER & Urgent Care Visits’ for Doctors to Diagnose This 34-Year-Old Nonsmoker’s Lung Cancer These Were Her First Symptoms

34-year-old Ashley Vassallo, a nonsmoker, developed a "subtle" lingering cough and "heaviness" in her chest in 2021 that were dismissed as COVID symptoms, but she was actually in an early stage of lung cancer. The hospice social worker had to advocate for herself for over a year to get some answers, and finally received her advanced lung cancer diagnosis that should never have progressed.