74-year-old woman defies cancer odds, called a miracle NBC Chicago [Video]

You don’t often hear a doctor call someone a “miracle,” but that’s exactly what 74-year-old Judy Armstrong was called.

“She is a modern day miracle,” said Dean Tsarwhas, MD, medical director of cancer services at Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital.

Armstrong, from Round Lake Beach, is living without active cancer after a stage four diagnosis in 2019.

“Turned out to be non-small cell lung cancer, metastasized to my brain,” Armstrong said.

It was Armstrong’s son, Greg, an EMT and firefighter, who urged his mom to go the emergency room during a card game in 2019.

“I was not playing the game as I usually do. I tend to win,” Armstrong said.

Scans and tests found a brain tumor that had spread from a tumor in her lung. Tsarwhas told Armstrong her life expectancy depended on how she responded to treatment.

“He said some patients are gone three to six months. …