A Hillsborough County mother is encouraging everyone to be their own advocate after she was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer nearly five years ago.Corinne Torney was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer that starts in pla sma cells.WATCH: Mother of 2 encourages others to be their own advocate after incurable cancer diagnosis Mother of 2 encourages others to be their own advocate after incurable cancer diagnosisShe was diagnosed in 2020 after recently giving birth."Leading up to the diagnosis, I was having a ton of back pain, a lot of fatigue, but at the time it was COVID so it was the year of 2020. I was teaching from home, working from home with a baby and a toddler," she said.Torney said at first, doctors attributed her symptoms to postpartum issues."I ended up going to a nurse practitioner here in Riverview, and she was the one who found the myeloma," said Torney."It's a disease of your plasma cells and your bone marrow, very rare and even more rare for a young person to get it. Statistically speaking, it's usually patients who are 65 and older," she said.Torney had to leave her job as an educator in Hillsborough County to start treatment in Arkansas.As a mother of two, she had to be away from her family."It was very devastating cause I just had a baby. She was 11 months old," she recalled."Arkansas is known for very aggressive myeloma treatment. They have one of the biggest myeloma hospitals in the United States, so when I went there. I met with the doctors, and he said because my disease was so aggressive and high-risk that we were going to get started right away," she recalled. Torney received treatment, including chemotherapy and two stem cell transplants.She said the disease is incurable, but she does not live in a constant state of fear or anxiety."I have no control over it. That's probably the hardest thing that you have to learn, you don't have any control over it. I try to live a healthy lifestyle, diet, exercise, but at the end of the day if it comes back, it comes back and I'll deal with it when it when it happens," said Torney. Torney said she wanted to share her story to bring awareness to multiple myeloma. She also wants to encourage others to be their own advocate."I just want others to pay attention to your body and if you get an answer from a doctor that you don't like get a second, third, fourth opinion and always advocate for yourself," she said."It's a hard disease to find it. It doesn't present itself very easily."To learn more about Torney and how to support her, click here. ...read more read less