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?"
"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 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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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.
But it is one of the truest and harshest life lessons to swallow.
Every moment is fleeting.
That would be my departing wisdom.
I've had some great times, and I've also made terrible mistakes.
I can't change it.
I would if I could.
But onward and upward we go. Right?
Redditor rebelliousbrownie9 wanted to hear life lessons from the over-30 crowd, so they asked:
"People above 30, what's your biggest regret?"
"Time wasted on things/people, but also learnt that there’s no point in regretting things in life, as it will just eat you up."
"You can’t change what’s happened in the past, so what’s the point?"
- AyySisu
Snail Ugh GIF by Sticker Book iOS GIFs Giphy
"Letting toxic people stay in my life for too long, I’ve now kicked them out of my life, but wish I did it years ago!!"
- gentleglowup
"I think to piggyback a bit but to take this a little differently, when you're young, toxic people or not, you hold onto people's opinions of you at every whim."
"By 30, I realized I'm not for everybody, and everybody's not for me, and that's okay."
"The old saying comes to mind... 'Be who you are, and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.'"
- Murfdigidy
"I didn't do a lot of fun things because none of my friends could go with me. I missed out on concerts, conventions, festivals, museums, and travel, all because I felt like I couldn't have fun unless I had a buddy. Now my friends have the money and time for adventures, but we're old and we get tired/sore too fast. I'm an independent person, and I wish I had just been brave enough to go it alone."
- itsjustmo_
"Not starting a retirement plan as soon as I was out of college. Compound interest is a powerful thing, but you gotta start it as early as possible."
- el_mustango
"What’s worse is going through those years knowing what I was missing out on in the future, but no way in hell I was affording to put money away during that period of life."
- lackHawksHockey
"I wasn't taught financial literacy, and even though I've always been responsible with savings and money management, I've lost so much potential earnings over two decades. My parents didn't teach me, and public schools obviously don't provide the education either."
"Now at 40, I've learned a lot about investing strategies and now have 100k in my 401k."
- Seastep
"Thinking I'd never be 30."
- TimeAdmirable
"WTF! This! Regardless of what anyone says about brain development, there is indeed a sense of living in the perpetual present in your late teens to early 20s that completely shifts at some point once you realize time is going faster than it’s ever gone before. In youth, we feel invincible to time. To me, adulthood is a process of realizing we’re not. We tend to think about the future once it’s too late."
- Happy-Investigator-
"Less people pleasing, more focus on self and finances. Live life and do your best to not be buried as the richest body in the graveyard!"
- HowToSuckA**
Serious Spongebob Squarepants GIF by Bombay Softwares Giphy
"Taking my health for granted."
- DekeJeffery
"Preserve your back, your ears, and your eyes."
"Don't lift heavy loads without a good lifting position, wear ear protection when you go to concerts, wear rest glasses while looking at screens."
"Do that in your 20s and 30s and you should avoid pain/complications in your 50s (and more)."
- P0werFighter
"Same. At 33, I now have three autoimmune diseases, endometriosis, a removed gallbladder, and survived a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. I’m tired, boss."
"I wish I had traveled more in my 20s when I was healthy. Now, when I take my kid to Disneyland, I’ll have to rent a wheelchair."
- Moal
"Dimming my light for someone who never ever deserved it, and staying far too long. Trust your gut."
- whippinfresh
"Let me share some thoughts on the interplay between individual and collective goals. Building on what others have said, the incremental elements stand out. When you examine quality assurance, mapping out the key factors, the picture becomes clearer. I'm persuaded by the idea there's significant potential here for incremental innovation."
- IDontWannaGetOutOfBe
"Drinking so much in my 20s and 30s. I wish I could have just been more moderate and carefree instead of relying on alcohol to feel liberated from my anxiety."
- Questjon
"Yeah, this is basically my mentality at nearly 40."
"I’ve probably spent gazillions on booze over the years, but don’t really regret it. I just keep it sensible (except on rare occasions) now and occasionally look back and cringe/chuckle."
- what_is_blue
"I drank that entire decade away, rehabbed, and got sober at 30. Playing catch-up at 32. I wasted so much of my life."
- mistercolebert
"Not learning to set boundaries with people in my life. In almost every relationship I have —whether family, social, or work-related —I’m constantly giving and now expected to keep giving. Rarely anything in return."
- RunningOnEmpty231
"My wife spent years taking care of her dad, a sociopath and a drinker. He would constantly manipulate by playing on her conscience, expecting her to be there no matter the time of day or whatever else she was doing. It took her so many years to realize how much he was destroying her well-being, that he didn’t care about her at all as long as he got what he wanted/needed."
It was just so deeply ingrained in her that family comes first, that family is something you have to have in your life, no matter what. She’s in a so much healthier place now."
- mcbugge
"It snowed, and I went to work instead of staying home and playing with my child. It never snowed again before she was an adult."
- high_pants13
"That's a beautiful regret."
- Redditor438
Home Alone Reaction GIF by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Giphy
"I guess I wish I had become good at studying at an earlier age. But I just can't have regrets because the mistakes I made were what made me who I am today. Of course, I didn't know what to do in certain situations in life; I was young."
- AnjouRey
"Just like you, I think the mistakes I made made me who I am today. So I have no regrets."
- Vanamelone
"I don’t think the education system does a good enough job in teaching children how to learn."
- OkPosition20
"Not putting enough effort into finding a career/lifestyle I actually like, and subsequently being locked into a career (because of loan debt) that I hate. Trying to figure out what you want to spend your time doing is difficult, and exploration is scary, but you will regret not forcing yourself to do it in your 20s when everything is still possible."
- Tank_Direct
"I am 40F. I got married at 26 and I wish I’d waited until I was 35."
- classicicedtea
"My mother always told me not to get married before I’m 30. I’m almost 30 now, and I totally get it. A lot of my friends married the first person they seriously dated in high school or college, which is not representative of the real world, and one you enter before you even know who you are. I’m thankful I didn’t take that path and just moved across the country instead."
- GUlysses
"Not choosing a career path and sticking to it, never really knew what I wanted to, and still don't really. But if I'd spent all that time sticking to one thing, I know I could have gone far(ish)."
- joezeff
Cat Working GIF Giphy
What have we learned?
Focus on yourself before others.
And when focusing on others, make sure they're the right kind of people who deserve your time.
Time is not a given.
That feeling is never fully realized until it's too late.
I wish there were a way for the under-30s to really understand that lesson.
But... don't fret, as long as you're breathing, one can always begin again.
