Cancer survivors share the moments they first realized something was wrong

Warning: This article discusses cancer diagnoses, cancer treatment, losing loved ones to cancer, and suicidal thoughts.

Unfortunately, cancer is all too common. Almost everyone has been affected in some way by this terrible disease. While some signs are clear and point a person directly toward a cancer diagnosis, others are more subtle.

It is very important to know the signs to watch for, both in yourself and in your loved ones. Reddit user AnyRiver7705 took to Reddit to ask: “Cancer survivors of Reddit, when did you first realize that something was seriously wrong with your body?” Here are 25 answers that I think everyone should take note of:

1. “I actually had no idea. I was at my allergist and she saw me swallowing. As soon as that happened, she went from a normal appointment to an ultrasound. I found out I had thyroid cancer because she saw a lump when I swallowed. I was told it was the best kind of cancer, though, if you want to get it.”

—Active-Celery-4932

2. “I felt really bad for weeks, almost like I had the flu. Apparently my immune system was responding and fighting the cancer. Fortunately, my doctor quickly took my symptoms seriously and sent me for imaging. They found a five-centimeter tumor in my lung. After it was surgically removed, pathology showed that it was in fact a metastasis from a malignant melanoma that I had removed in 2017. So I started immunotherapy Unfortunately, about eight weeks ago I “.

—Lucypenny4683

3. “Not me, but this is my daughter. It was all very sudden for us. She was 13 months old and had some constipation issues, which we thought we would work on with her pediatrician. Suddenly, she woke up screaming in pain on New Year’s Day; she was totally inconsolable. We headed to the emergency room when we noticed that her legs weren’t working at all. She had taken her first steps only a few weeks earlier; all of a sudden, she could no longer stand, walk, or even move her legs. She was diagnosed with stage 4 yolk sac carcinoma that had spread down her spine and fractured her L1, destroying the discs above and below. After about six months of treatment, she has been in remission for five years as of July.

—patd1

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4. “I suffered from a chronic stuffy nose and had trouble breathing through my nose. Most doctors told me it was allergies. I eventually went to see an ear, nose and throat specialist, who did an MRI and saw that my adenoids were swollen. I had them removed and after testing them, they discovered I had lymphoma.”

—your new favorite

5. “I wheezed for the first time in my life because of a cold, at age 48. At first I made it go away, but it came back a few weeks later with another cold. I went to my family doctor, who was concerned and ordered a chest x-ray, which showed a mass in my lung. The mass turned out to be lung cancer. I’ve never smoked, just bad luck. Luckily it was caught early and I’m fine.”

—A_rwolf_wife

6. “For a while, coughing or sneezing caused such intense pain in my leg that I lost all feeling and my leg gave way. Additionally, I could feel water running down my leg even though it wasn’t there; it felt like my leg was being plunged into an ice bath. It turned out that there was a tumor in my spinal cord growing from my nerve. I had pain so intense and constant that I contemplated suicide as more and more doctors ruled me out.”

—cat_gato_neko

7. “I had a lump below my belt. Two doctors told me it was a hernia and that if I could live with it, I wouldn’t need to have it repaired. My third doctor was a complete joke, but he sent me to a urologist who didn’t find anything either, but said he wanted to send my x-rays to a radiologist and look at them, and he would get back to me. That urologist ended up chasing me across his parking lot while I was “

—somniforous almond eye

8. “When I had pain that would double over several hours after eating, I knew something was wrong. It turned out I had a tumor just beyond my appendix that was obstructing everything in sight. To get rid of it, they surgically removed it and a third of my colon. I’ve had a semicolon for 20 years now!”

—bohemian013

9. “I’ve had cancer twice. I remember as a child being sick and feeling physically exhausted. I was 6 years old and that symptom turned out to be leukemia. In my early 20s I was about to drive and suddenly felt very drunk. I had a seizure that turned out to be a sign of an astrocytoma type 3 brain tumor. I’m in my 40s now and have always kicking.”

—beer beast

10. “Food poisoning saved my life. I had a severe case of food poisoning and had digestive issues my whole life. I went to the emergency room with a very high fever; my white blood cell count was through the roof. They were worried about a perforation, so I went to the scanner. I was given IV antibiotics and lots of IV fluids. The images came back with no perforation, but they sent me home and were very insistent on I called my GI doctor on Monday. Long story short, I was diagnosed with Stage 2 Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma. My right kidney was removed a few months later because it was encapsulated, and the two people I told, mostly family members, were freaking out, based on all the research I’ve read, survival rates were over 90%.

—NiveusOurs

“I found the best Davinci robot surgeon on the West Coast and called him. It took about two weeks to get the pathology report. It turned out that I had a rare and extremely aggressive cancer called small cell renal cell carcinoma. My doctor explained to me that I would be dead within the next five years if we hadn’t found it then. I will celebrate 10 years of being cancer free next June. I still have to have blood tests every 90 days and I had annual full body MRIs for five years after surgery, every day at this point in my life is bonus time.

—NiveusOurs

Related: “Former Patients Share Their Craziest Doctor Visits and Bullshit”

11. “This is not my story, but my mother’s. At age 73, she started having irregular discharge in her underwear again. The doctor she saw passed it off as “hormones” and put her on the pill. It was only because this doctor went on vacation and she spoke to her replacement, who immediately sent her to a gynecologist and then a specialist oncologist, that she was diagnosed with stage 3/4 uterine cancer (note: not cervical cancer. She had a hysterectomy and radiation, but the specialist oncologist said putting her on the pill was a huge mistake because these cancers respond to hormones).

“She died from metastatic cancers that might not have happened if the original doctor had done his damn job. A 73-year-old woman doesn’t suddenly start menstruating again.”

-Yowie9644

12. “I started having very severe shortness of breath, like the worst kind of panic attack. It turned into a wet, wheezing cough, and my primary care doctor ordered a chest CT scan. The doctors said it looked like pneumonia, but it didn’t go away for months. I was treated for pneumonia for three months before I collapsed at work, and my boss took me to the emergency room. I was admitted for, you guessed it, just very bad pneumonia. It took me another month in the hospital before I was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma; at that point it was present in my lungs and brainstem.

“One of the rotating pulmonologists looked at my tests and my images and my blood work and said, ‘Hey, this is super weird, let’s do a biopsy.’ “I owe my life to him. I try not to get too upset about how long it took, because the pandemic was just starting in earnest in the United States and everything was so chaotic. Sometimes I’m still a little upset about it. You have to stand up for yourself, even though it’s hard and the “experts” are talking to you. You know your body; listen to what it’s telling you.

— Simply Malice

13. “I went to the bathroom and thought I had guts. I ended up excreting enough blood to require two blood transfusions once I was rushed to the hospital. I found out I had stage 1 colon cancer after a battery of tests. I had no symptoms until I had the blood.”

—Rewbee

14. “My toddler kicked me in the breast during a tantrum. I thought he had broken something. I had him checked out by a doctor and the imaging revealed breast cancer. From discovery to diagnosis, only a week passed. That tantrum probably saved my life.”

—Maddmaddmaddy

15. “I had abdominal pain and had a CT scan. It showed enlarged lymph nodes, so they did a biopsy. The result came back negative. Then, four months later, I went out to eat with my family. I was hungry, but when my food came, I just wouldn’t eat. I started having abdominal pain again and coughing up green stuff. I went to the doctor several times and I had x-rays and tests, but still nothing About a month later I was feeling terrible and “I asked my mom to meet me at my doctor. When she saw me, I knew something was seriously wrong with her face. They took blood and urine (which was the color of Coke), and I continued to be short of breath when I went to the emergency room from the doctor’s office. After the scan, the doctor said I had pancreatic cancer. “

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