My tumor hardened and doubled in size in a couple of weeks."
Recently, wewroteabout early cancer symptoms, and users from theBuzzFeed Communitychimed in with their own experiences.
Here are 39 more stories of how people first realized something was wrong.
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*Along with some examples from theoriginal Reddit thread.
“When I was eight, I’d start getting this God-awful pain under my ribs.
Turns out it was pancreatitis.
So they went up the other end and found hundreds of polyps in various sizes and stages of mutation.
I had FAP, which causes colon cancer in 99% of carriers.”
“Found mine just in time as I hit stage 1, and I had my entire colon removed.
I also now routinely get the polyps removed from my pancreas so the pancreatitis doesn’t come back.
amishgirl281
2.
His doctor told him he had carpal tunnel syndrome.
Five months later, he was dead from glioblastoma brain cancer.
The twitching in his thumb, lip, and then eyelid were his only symptoms.”
cutedaisy98
3. padawanryan
4.
“Over the course of a morning, I went blind.
“After a couple weeks, I had a pain in my collarbone and a migraine.
It was Acute Lymphoblastileukemiaia.
The fluid buildup was because my immune system was so messed up.
), and generally feeling like a 900-year-old most of the time.”
katertomater
5.
The doctors were surprised that his heart could even pump the blood because of how thick it was.”
stacirpierce
6.
“I had a solid left nut.
There was no sensation in it.
My doctor misdiagnosed it.
I got him to write me a referral for a scan and paid for it.
Don’t go on their opinion alone.”
u/CrepitusPhalange
7.
“I didn’t have any symptoms I just randomly had a seizure one day after work.
It turns out I had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball.
Surgery, chemo, and radiotherapy beat it when I was 21. j4bd133df2
8.
“I didn’t have any symptoms.
I just had a spooky dream that I couldn’t shake.
It sounds weird, but it’s the truth.
My mom passed away in March of 2020 from cervical cancer.
And she looked at me and said, “Don’t be like me.
Go to the doctor and ask.
It means death if you don’t.”
I woke up right afterward.
It was a weird dream, but I tried just to dismiss it.
Something about it, though, kept nagging at me.”
All of my blood came back normal.
My urine was fine, too.
To make an already long story shorter, it was not benign.
I’ll have to have regular checkups for the rest of my life, though.
Because PTC grows slowly, the endocrinologist said I could have had it for ten years or more.
Now, I don’t necessarily believe in paranormal stuff, but I don’tnotbelieve in it either.
So, did my mom come back in a dream to warn me about my tumor?
Was it all just a coincidence?
I don’t know, but I’m glad I listened to that dream either way.”
u/ThisMFerIsNotReal
9.
They would come and go, and I thought nothing of them.
At one point, I could not ignore them anymore.
I saw my doctor’s resident, and that same week, I had an ultrasound.
A biopsy followed not long after.
I was eventually diagnosed with papillary thyroid carcinoma, which was caught very early.
In July 2019, I had the right side of my thyroid removed.
Thankfully, the nodules on the left side have gone away.
margannlaurissa
10.
“My husband had a hearing loss for one year.
He would get his ears cleaned, but it didn’t help.
It turned out it was stage IV nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and he passed away five months later.”
amandaeh
11.
“I had colon cancer when I was 17.
Doctors think it started forming when I was 14.
I was always constipated.
Look up Lynch syndrome if your family has a history of cancer.”
paigevandusseldorp
12.
She told me it was just dry eye from menopause and that I shouldn’t worry.
GET SECOND OPINIONS!"
hillaryharmonp
“If I had left it another year, things would be a lot different right now.
Don’t ignore the signs, and don’t put off getting skin checks!
I have them done every six months now.”
omglikeseriously
14.
I was dancing 6-7 hours a day at the high school in my county.
I thought I’d developed some massive neck muscle and didn’t say a thing for a few weeks.
The day I turned 16, I had three surgeries and started chemo a few days later.
I had a good friend who had some hip surgeries and told me to see her orthopedic.
Moral: find a doctor that listens and keep advocating for yourself."
kraeballer
15.
“I was 28 years old.
I woke up on a Sunday morning after winning a huge award at a work event the night before.
I had some lower abdominal pain and pressure that felt like the start of a UTI.
As the day went on, my lower back started to have that same pain and pressure.
As part of his routine questions, he asked if my bowel functions were normal.
He wanted to feel my abdomen just to double-check everything was okay.
“Fast forward to an immediate appointment with a gynecological oncologist.
I am now seven years cancer-free.”
ukmorgo
16.
“I was extremely tired and covered in bruises and red spots for a few weeks.
I had six months of chemo and was in remission for a few years.
I have now been in remission for ten years.”
crystald4ac809592
17.
“Mine was just off of cancer.
I spotted a mole on my labia that I had never seen before.
I immediately went to the doctor.
She thought it was nothing but removed it anyway, just to see to it.
It turned out to be stage 4 pre-vulvar cancer.
kimberlym43e5f6aad
18.
Two years later, I felt my mastectomy scar (the part that was in my armpit).
There was a tiny area of thickness in the scar.
But then I remembered that a thickening could be a sign of cancer.”
“I made appointments with my surgeon and oncologist to examine it.
The oncologist laughed at me and told me it was nothing!
I had a lumpectomy, a revision of my scar, and radiation therapy.
I’m still here 12 years later.”
vibranttrash80
19.
“Not me, but my mother.
She was in her mid-fifties and was bleeding for a few months with mild cramping.
She assumed, based on all her other symptoms, that she was going through menopause.
Until one day, she was losing so much blood she couldn’t stand up.
Somehow, she beat it and has had no active cancer for five years!
It was a true miracle.”
vnewhouse1104
20.
“I had a small knotted bruise on my leg for two years.
That should have been my first sign.
However, two years later, …
I developed severe anxiety after choking on an airhead (hahaha).
I would have panic attacks and spend a month or two constantly feeling faint.
I talked to a therapist and was prescribed medication for anxiety.
Two weeks later, I had my first seizure.
“31 days and over 50 seizures later, I had an awake craniotomy to remove the tumor.
They did a biopsy, and it was cancer.
Over a year since I finished maintenance chemo and I’m still having good scans.”
gurlygurl3587
21.
“My chest felt heavy, and I could not clear out the rasp in my cough.
u/IamtheBoomstick
22.
“I’d always had extremely heavy, long, and painful periods but no other signs.
I’m almost 12 years cancer-free.”
purpletruck35
23.
“I was a teacher.
I was extremely fatigued and had a sore throat and headache.
I had some bruising.
I didn’t make much of that because I bruised like a banana.
I finished conferences, and the next day was Thanksgiving.
I thought for sure I had strep throat.
They did a throat culture, and it came back negative.
They did bloodwork to see if it was mono.
It took forever to get the lab results back while I waited in the waiting room.
Someone had to drive me.
I had to go directly there without stopping for anything.”
“Once I got there, they told me I had acute myeloid leukemia.
That was 11 years ago.”
cwoody65
24.
“I was three.
I fell off a one-foot retaining wall in our backyard and started screaming.
My mom’s a nurse and knew it was something more than just being scared.
We went to the ER, and they found a tumor on my kidney.
After running a bunch of tests to determine what kind of tumor, they took the kidney out.
u/Rare_Hydrogen
25.
My parents didn’t think much of it until I started complaining about back pain.
They took me to the doctor, who found I had a compression fracture in my spine.
You don’t just randomly get compression fractures in your spine.
So they ran a bunch of tests, and it turned out I had leukemia.
Been cancer-free for almost 20 years.”
pandabear905
26.
“I’m a 32-year-old man who was just diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma last week.
I had zero symptoms.
I randomly had a scan on my liver, and the scan caught a cancerous mass on my kidney.
The cancer doctor said nothing about lifestyle caused it.
Sometimes, cancer just happens.
But I most likely would’ve started having symptoms/issues in 10-15 years.”
u/porch1013
27.
“I had pain in my back that, at first, I thought might be kidney stones.
Eventually, it became a dull uncomfortableness, but it lasted for a couple of weeks.
My friends insisted I go to the doctor, who ordered X-rays.
He said it was an 11 cm tumor attached to my kidney.”
This also happened right before everything shut down for the pandemic.
I’ve been cancer-free for 4.5 years now, and fortunately, my other kidney is functioning normally.”
vasato
28.
“I felt a lump last year on my right breast.
I’m not at the age where mammograms are recommended.
I went to my PCP, and she sent me to have imaging done.
It was at a teaching hospital, so there were like four doctors in the room for my ultrasound.
“I had chemo, lumpectomy, and radiation.
Now, I’m on maintenance therapy for the next couple of years.
Trust your instincts, people!
See the doctor and ask questions.
My tumor hardened and doubled in size in a couple of weeks.”
graceshark
29.
“I started having double vision in the evening.
The double vision worsened, and I went to another eye doctor.
They said I had thyroid eye disease, but my thyroid levels were fine.
They also referred me to a neurologist ophthalmologist.
It ended up being a clival chordoma, which is a one-in-a-million bone cancer in my brain.”
“I had it removed, and 42 treatments of radiation later, I am almost two years post-treatment.
Afterward, I realized my border collie would always try and lick my ears.
I think to try and get the tumor out of my head.
After tumor removal, my dog stopped licking my ears.”
nicolemmmmm
30.
“My sister started having pain in her abdomen.
Over a couple of days, it got worse and worse to where she could barely walk.
My mom made her go to the doctor.
They found a tear in her bowel and scheduled her for surgery.
While in surgery, they found colon cancer, stage 2.
The tear had nothing to do with the cancer.
If she wouldn’t have had that tear, she would’ve never known.
xxpiggy33xx
31.
“I caught my belly skin in the zipper of my jeans.
The sore didn’t fully heal or go away for over a year.
It didn’t really get any bigger, it was just red, flaky and a bit itchy.
I asked my GP about it, and she asked me if I believed in God (wtf).
I reminded her that I was only 25 (she’s no longer my GP!).
I went to one dermatologist twice, who said nothing was wrong.
The second dermatologist said nothing was wrong, but I begged for a biopsy.
Turned out to be basal cell skin cancer.
Trust your instincts!”
sharmack
32.
“Started having back pain.
Eventually, the pain got worse, and I started to get pain in my abdomen.
Stage 3b Germ cell tumor.
It spread all over, but I’m cancer-free now.”
u/BadSarcasm1
33.
“Initially, back pain and general malaise.
Then I went back because my ribs seemed to be protruding on one side.
Again, I was dismissed.
u/Majestic-Nobody545
34.
I figured I just had a recurring stomach bug.
My wife called crying to get me in for a CT scan.
The whole morning before the scan, I was trying to keep the smoothie down.
Turns out I had colon cancer at 43.
Amazingly, considering its size, the cancer was contained in my colon.
I’m now 56 and still here.”
mattc43a58ece2
35.
“My hair was falling out, and I was irritable.
I just thought it was the result of bariatric surgery.
I got labs, and they showed my TSH was out of whack.
Again, I thought it was the result of bariatric surgery.
Doc recommended an ultrasound of my thyroid.
I really didn’t think it was necessary since the physical exam of my thyroid was fine.
u/Outrageous_Bite307
36. table4five
37.
“My husband…he had this awful persistent stomach ache.
He thought it was constipation; I kept telling him to go to the doctor.
Finally, he woke up one morning doubled over in pain, so I took him to the ER.
It turned out he had a super rare form of gastrointestinal cancer.”
bethf6
38.
“I had intermittent bleeding while having bowel movements.
Never in my underwear, and only sometimes when wiping.
I thought maybe it was an internal hemorrhoid.
Stage 3 colon cancer at 39. u/subtlelikeawreckball
39.And finally…“No symptoms.
u/ivylass
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.
