Cancer Patients Explain Which Symptoms Ultimately Led Them To See A Doctor

Cancer has taken far too many lives and affected far too many people.

Where is a cure?

As scary as the word cancer is, we must face it head-on.

Hiding from it and ignoring symptoms will only make the outcome worse.

So many of us are often in disbelief or don't want to look paranoid about nothing.

But when should we visit a doctor?

Redditor guardiand0wn was hoping people with cancer would be willing to share some personal details, so they asked:

"People who have cancer, what were the symptoms that led you to go to the doctor, and what stage were you when it was diagnosed?"

Lumps

"I felt a lump on my breast that I hadn’t noticed before. I thought it might be a cyst since it seemingly came out of nowhere, and I had no other skin changes or symptoms to indicate anything serious. I was Stage 2B at the time of my diagnosis with Triple Negative Invasive Ductal Carcinoma."

"I was going to be starting the yearly mammograms this year. My doctor advised me to start having them 10 years prior to my mother’s age when she was diagnosed. She was 46 at diagnosis and 49 at her passing. I was 36 at the time of my diagnosis in March, now 37."

"Thanks for your kind well wishes ❤️."

- salem_faust

breast cancer GIF by Baptist Health South Florida Giphy

Work Bro Knows

"Work buddy suddenly said, 'Yo man, your neck looks fat.'”

"Me going, 'WTF man, that’s so rude.'"

"Him going, 'No, really, it looks fatter than before."

M"e going, 'WTF man, that’s like a double-edged insult.'"

"Him going, 'No really bro maybe you should see a doc or something.'"

"So I did."

"Thyroid cancer."

"Work bro caught it at stage ZERO."

"Didn't even need chemo. Docs just removed the gland."

'On lifelong thyroxine, but that’s the best outcome really."

'Work bro and I still keep in contact 15 years later."

- Brynhild

92%

"Shortness of breath and low energy. I thought that it was a resurgence of asthma that I had as a child."

"Turns out that I felt that way because my body was severely low on hemoglobin. Pesky leukemia had replaced 92% of my bone marrow with cancer.'

"That was 18 months ago. Been in full remission since January. Don’t recommend."

- Baldcatbird

Hips Don't Lie

"About a year before I was diagnosed, I had a sharp pain in my hip so bad it left me doubled over. It only lasted a couple of seconds, and only lasted once, so I didn’t follow up."

"During a pre op for an unrelated surgery, my doctor found a lump in my breast. She sent me for a mammogram, they kept me for a biopsy, and I was diagnosed with breast cancer.'

"And the hip pain? That was a tumor setting up shop in my hip. My cancer is metastatic."

"I’m No Evidence of Disease as of June, and I’m enjoying it as much as I can."

- insertcaffeine

Bowel Stats

"A sudden and complete bowel obstruction one day. I knew what it was (I was a nurse) and went to the ED right away. They did scans, and I had surgery that night."

"I already had Stage 4 bowel cancer. The only symptom prior to that was some very mild constipation that I had put down to not drinking enough water.'

"This was in May 2022. I'm still here, happy with every day."

"I hope this is a warning to others to be aware that any bowel changes can be a sign of something serious, so please see a doctor."

"This includes constipation (that lasts more than a few weeks), blood in your stool, abdominal pain with cramping or bloating, unexplained weight loss, stools that are narrower than normal, or a feeling that you can't fully empty your bowel."

"Bowel cancer is on the rise, especially in young people. Be aware of the signs and ask for a colonoscopy if you have symptoms. Don't let a doctor tell you you are too young. Look up the stats."

- MirSydney

ROOTED

"Red dot on my arm that never healed. I read on Reddit that someone had a red dot that turned out to be cancer. Scheduled visit to dermatologist and sure enough, it was a rooted melanoma. Over 30 stitches later, I’m ok."

- MyPonyMeeko

Teddy Bear Doctor GIF Giphy

SOMETHING

"Period that wouldn’t stop even with an endometrial ablation (lighter but still,) but other than that-nothing. Oh-some cramping during sex. They did an ultrasound, found 'something' on my ovary. They looked again a few weeks later, and it had grown. They wanted to watch it more-my husband said over his dead body. He rattled the right cages and got me an MRI-ovarian cancer that had already spread to my liver capsule. Stage 3b. Big surgery and 6 rounds of chemo-I’m still here! I will be 3 years cancer-free in December."

- ib4m2es

Do you want a scan?

"Even crazier is my oncologist’s story: she had a random pain in her breast. Labs looked good. The mammogram was normal. She saw a bunch of other docs that also said it was nothing. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that it was cancer. So she pressed for a biopsy, but then something told her to just get both removed, so she ended up having an elective double mastectomy. Cancer in both breasts that she caught early. She is so amazing. If I so much as say my eye is twitching, she says 'Do you want a scan? Let me send you to the best eye doctor I know. Let’s do this.'”

- ib4m2es

Finding a Ball

"I got SUPER lucky."

"I was lying on the couch, 17 years old, and realized I was rubbing a lump on my back. I went and showed my dad. He and my mother were divorced, and by chance, he was renting the master bedroom out to a nurse. He walked me down the hall, knocked on her door, and had her feel it."

"She said it felt hard, and I should get it checked out."

"The next week, I was in a doctor’s office. Less than a week after that, I was getting it removed."

"Two weeks later, they removed the stitches, and at that point, they still didn’t know what it was. 3 labs failed to determine it. It had to be sent out of state, where finally it was identified as a very rare and aggressive Soft Tissue Sarcoma that kills 60% of the people who get it."

"They don’t even screw around with Chemo, they go straight to surgery and amputations. I had a second wide excision surgery up my spine (over 2 dozen stickers, all for an original 2cm ball) to remove the surrounding area."

"Everything came up clear, and we basically caught it before it spread because we rented a room to a nurse. If my parents weren’t divorced, I would probably be dead."

- he2lium

12 Years Later

"I was a lot more tired than usual and assumed my depression had returned, so I scheduled a visit. No other symptoms."

"Before the scheduled visit happened, I'd donated blood. I received a call from the Red Cross physician, who told me I needed labs done again ASAP. (As a medical transcriptionist at the time, once he mentioned blast cells, I knew what those labs would be looking to confirm)."

"Sure enough, after the requested lab results came back and I'd gotten a bone marrow biopsy via oncology, I was diagnosed with CML (leukemia)."

"Since I'd donated blood only two months prior without incident, the leukemia was caught really early. "

"I'm now a 12-year survivor."

- Stenfam2628

Stage 4

"I found lumps in my neck, had night sweats. Turned out, it was stage 4 Hodgkin's lymphoma. This was 6 years ago."

- Anakin_Sandwalker

feeling neck skin GIF Giphy

UNDETECTABLE

"Great health but weak pee stream, had to get up multiple times at night to pee. PSA was within normal range, but the doctor sent me for an MRI. It showed a large lesion popped out of the prostate. It turned out to be a rare aggressive type of prostate cancer, Gleason 9 Stage 3a; I found this all out after surgery."

"The local urologist said I could only have radiation. Went for a second opinion at UC San Diego. Got connected with the best urological surgeon in the US. It's now been four years, this month, with undetectable PSA. Not a day of incontinence. Others started working within a year with the blue pill. At my house, the surgeon ranks somewhere between Jesus and God."

- Ok_Indication_4873

YELLOW

"My first cancer, I turned yellow. Turned out I had type 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma, squeezing the duct from my pancreas and gall bladder (my gall bladder was also bad). They put stents in the duct, and after chemo, I was all better."

"6 years later, my neck started swelling, and it was determined I had the same lymphoma problem next to my thyroid (which had also gone bad). They removed one side of the thyroid, but then the other side grew out of control and caused my throat to constrict so much that I couldn't talk or eat. So they removed the other side too. Another round of chemo and I am all better again."

"I have since been diagnosed with Follicular Lymphoma, which basically means my lymph nodes can randomly go cancerous if they get stressed. I am waiting for my appendix or spleen, or something else, to go bad for that to happen. Wee."

- Passinonreddit

Sensations

"At the gym, sitting on the ground, ready to do a straight leg rope climb like I had been doing every day for months, and this one day there was an unusual internal tug deep in my pelvis… Not a pain, but just a new sensation. Over the next week, the sensation returned every time I went to climb the rope. The sensation did not correspond to any body parts I could think of (I’m a physician), and I went to see my primary, telling them 'something‘s not right.' A CT scan demonstrated metastatic prostate cancer."

- an_enduser

Red Flags

"Blood in my urine, feeling full after eating very little, and intermittent severe abdominal pain. Had a massive tumor that had burst, ovarian cancer, stage 1c."

- OmgChickenLights

"Oh God, I've had endometriomas burst and that was horrible, I can't imagine the kind of pain you must have been in."

"Glad you're doing well so far."

- elvie18

praying GIF Giphy

This thread makes me hopeful, sad, and nervous.

I feel like running to the doctor right now.

I'm going to take a few deep breaths.

Did everyone take notes?

I suggest reading more of the thread on Reddit, very informative.

I suppose the best way to beat cancer is not to fear it.

That is easier said than done.

Good luck to us all.