People Are Sharing The “Harmless” Little Sign They Nearly Ignored That Predicted A Life-Threatening Health Scare
2. “I went to my regular checkup with my cardiologist in January. I felt pretty good except for some ongoing chest pressure and fatigue. I had a stress test, echocardiogram, and event monitor within the previous ten months. Nothing significant showed up…”
“…The doctor decided that since this pressure hadn’t gone away, it was time for a heart catheterization. The next week, I went in for the cath, sure that it wouldn’t show anything the other tests wouldn’t catch. Boy was I wrong. I remember my doctor saying, ‘This isn’t good,” and he came closer to explain that my stent in a major artery was almost totally closed off due to an ostial lesion, and to re-stent would be dangerous. I had a cardiothoracic surgery consult and, the next day underwent a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). I was stunned, to say the least. I am feeling much better since the bypass!”
4. “In April 2020, I noticed a little bump growing on my upper lip. It felt like an ingrown hair from shaving. I picked at it with a needle as I’d done before when an ingrown happened, but I couldn’t find the hair. It kept growing and turned out to be a speedy growing type of wart with a nasty solid ‘horn’ on it. I finally got an appointment at the dermatologist, and she took one look and told me she’d spray it with the liquid nitrogen, which would take care of it…”
“…After she sprayed it, she asked if I had any others. I said, ‘Well, I’ve got a crusty-looking wart on my left calf.’ Long story short, that thing I thought was just a wart turned out to be squamous cell carcinoma-type skin cancer. Fast forward to the present day, and I have had an excision to remove the SCC, plus two other biopsies. Thankfully, a spot on my toe turned out to be benign, but a spot on my face is basal cell carcinoma and will require Mohs surgery sometime later this month. The story’s moral is: wear sunscreen more often than I did!”
7. “It was April 2006, and I was getting ready to go out with some friends. I lived at home, and my mom yelled at me to put the flea collar on my cat. Roxie, my somewhat feral cat doesn’t love affection. Honestly, she didn’t belong in the house, but at this point, that’s neither here nor there; she had been with us for three or four years. Anyway, I put it on her, she lost her shit and bit the palm of my hand. I bled for a second, washed it, and told my mom the cat’s collar was on…”
8. “My 12-year-old daughter got her period when she was 11. Everything seemed normal, and I didn’t think anything of it. Six months later, she had a common chest cold, so I took her to the doctor for some antibiotics. We were seen by a nurse practitioner who was very thorough and asked us many questions. The one question she asked us probably saved my daughter’s life. She asked about her period. After I told her, she recommended we get some bloodwork done, including hormones…”
“…So we did, and she was given some antibiotics for her cold, and we went home. Two days later, I got a phone call from her doctor, who wanted us to come in ASAP. My daughter’s hormones were way off. She had a testosterone level the same as a 25-year-old man and hardly any estrogen. She ordered a bunch of tests that included an MRI of her brain. An ultrasound of her uterus sent us to a specialist for hormones. Tests came back, and she was riddled with ovarian cysts, a tumor in her rectum, and a tumor near her pituitary gland just behind her eyes. Everything turned out to be fine. She is now 28 years old, and her hormones are back to normal and the ovarian cysts went away as soon as she started her periods again. She had to have brain surgery to remove the tumor behind her eyes, and then the tumor in her rectum just disappeared.”
10. “My boyfriend had a stomach ache and felt sick; he vomited a couple of times and went to lie down. He slept for about an hour and woke up feeling worse. He decided to go to the hospital. He figured it was maybe an ulcer or something, and they would give him a prescription and send him home. They did a CT scan and some blood work. Turns out he had acute pancreatitis…”
“…He was in a coma for 43 days. He had a breathing tube and was on life support. The doctors said that he was going to die. Then, they put in two abdominal drains and did a tracheostomy (put a hole in his throat with a tube so the machine could help him breathe). He woke up and had no idea what had happened. He went to the emergency on September 30 and woke up in the ICU on November 12th. He was in the hospital in another unit till November 20th. He didn’t die, but it was very close. He is now recovering at home; he still has the abdominal drains and is now an insulin-dependent diabetic and has to take enzymes to help him digest food. Everyone said he wouldn’t make it, but I’m so grateful to have him home.”
12. “My daughter, who had been living with us for four years, had a UTI that wasn’t responding to antibiotics. She was having some back pain and feeling a little sick to her stomach. She decided to get it checked out to see if she had a kidney stone. After they did X-rays and scans, they found a huge cancerous mass on her kidney. The cancer had also spread to her lung, liver, spine, bladder, and uterus. She never left the hospital and died exactly two weeks later. We never had a clue. She was feeling fine until about two weeks before going into the hospital. We were sure it was a kidney stone. I miss her terribly.”
14. “When I moved to Thailand, I got terrible acne on my chin. I figured it was from the hotter climate, different food, pollution, or water. Whatever the cause, it was worse than it had been in years. That summer, after being in Thailand for about five months, I suddenly had to go home and I scheduled an appointment with my dermatologist while I was in town…”
15. “I had been having nagging neck and shoulder pain for months. I went to my doctor, who was an internal medicine doctor. He did a cursory check of things and decided I was most likely depressed. I didn’t believe I was, but I figured the doctor knew best. I left his office with a prescription for Prozac. I took it for a month and didn’t feel any happier or any less pain. We tried muscle relaxants also. They didn’t help much, but they made me sleep well. I stopped taking the antidepressant and went back to the doctor for another check…”
“…He sent me to a rehabilitation doctor who suggested physical therapy, so I started PT a couple of times a week. I was fit then, doing 100-mile cycling rides, sprinting, and Olympic-level triathlons.
As the months passed, there was no real progress, except I started getting shooting, shock-like pains in the side of my face that would make me twitch. They were intense yet momentary. The rehab doctor decided it was time for MRIs of my head and neck. He said the scans came back with nothing significant and decided we would start a course of lidocaine injection therapy. I went and had the injections.
The injections didn’t work for more than a couple of days. I called the doctor, and he was dumbfounded. He said the injections should have relieved for weeks, and we would try another round. He was referred to a neurologist for nerve testing. The testing showed nothing notable.
During that time, I found a large lump in my neck. It was close to my lymph gland and felt like it, but it wasn’t in the right place. When I went for my appointment, I asked him what he thought about it. He looked shocked and sent me for more MRIs.
When I met to review the new scans, he sheepishly admitted the first scans had shown a problem, and the doctor reviewing them said I needed further testing that extended further down my spine. The new scans revealed a massive schwannoma (a rare type of tumor) growing on my spinal cord and enveloping my C-2 nerve. The entire process to get the diagnosis was close to a year.
I was referred to a neurologist, who quickly said the tumor was too entangled and was beyond his scope of expertise. He referred me to another doctor who said the same thing and then referred me to the chief neurologist at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. He had concerns but took the case. We scheduled the surgery for a couple of months forward. He explained it was a slow-growing, non-malignant tumor and a slow approach would give me time to get my affairs in order.
Then, my partner suddenly died. As I write this, I still don’t know how I survived those days and weeks. What a horrible nightmare.
I had the surgery, which saved my life. They had to completely cut out my C-2 nerve and my vertebral artery on my right side. Permanent bilateral rods were placed in my neck. Much to everyone’s surprise, I could walk, talk, and breathe independently.
I survived and could return to my whole duty as a police officer seven months later. I will be forever grateful and indebted to the staff at the chief of neurology at Wake Forest.”
19. “A few weeks before my nineteenth birthday, I was sitting next to my mom. When I went to look at her, she pointed out that my left eye did not track with my right eye, which made it look like I had a lazy eye. The next day, after we had all laughed it off (because it did look quite goofy), my mom made an appointment with a neuro-opthalmologist. We went in on a busy Saturday, and after he examined my eye, he requested that we make another appointment on a day when he would have more time to dedicate to me and the testing that would have to be done…”
