When a rash or an odd-looking spot appears on our body, we tend to instinctively brush it off as nothing. But for these people, it turned out to be a sign of a severe illness that left some of them staring the Grim Reaper right in the face.
What you’re about to read are responses to this Quora question: “What was something small you went to the doctor for that turned out to be very significant?”
Answers came flooding in. Some people shared the worst and most painful ways they found out they had cancer or organ infections. Others learned they were within days of death because of a bruise on their arm.
You would want to read these stories. Enjoy scrolling through.
#1
Not me, but my husband. In mid-March 2012, he started waking each morning with pain in his lower right abdomen. It would last about 5 minutes, then be gone for the rest of the day. When this had occurred every morning for about 10 days, I told him he needed to get to his doctor to find out what was going on. He hesitated until I reminded him that he still had his appendix, had a 90 minute (each way) commute to work on busy Interstate 95 into Washington DC. I told him that if it was his appendix, then it could rupture during rush hour traffic, not just putting him in danger, but also the many other commuters surrounding him. He finally agreed, and made an appointment for that afternoon. So he went in to his doctor, who immediately sent him across the street to the hospital for a CT scan. He called to let me know, and I drove there to be with him while he awaited the results. We sat there, me telling him that appendix surgery isn’t a big deal, and he would only be out of work a few days. Friends on Facebook were sending their support, and absolutely none of us were very concerned. We were waiting about an hour, until finally a Physician’s Assistant entered the room, with the films in hand. She stood briefly silent, and finally spoke: “You have stage 4 kidney cancer. Call Dr. ____ in the morning to make an appointment to discuss treatment.” With that, she turned & walked out.
Less than 3 months later, my 59 year old husband, whom I had loved since I was 16, died at home, surrounded by family. We had been together 41 years, and married for 39.
UPDATE 1/18/21: An edit was suggested to my answer. While I appreciate the thought, I find it unnecessary. I feel that my original answer got my message across. I did not submit in an effort to win a Pulitzer Prize… I submitted an answer about about what was, by far, the most traumatic event to my life. I myself am chronically ill and disabled, and on top of that I recently moved to a new house… all in the middle of a global pandemic, meaning I have no help. So I’m just a bit busy with my life, and grammatical errors are, trust me, the last thing on my mind.
Image credits: Barbara Domer-Hostetler
#2
Not me, but my sister.
On August 2020, my sister got 2–3 painless lumps in her neck and near upper stomach.
She was working in a different city, so she could not come to her home in lockdown. She came to her home in September. She went to the doctor and did some blood tests. The doctor confirmed it was nothing serious and it was just an accumulation of fats due to long working hours, no exercise and no proper diet.
She had to return to office location by next week. After some days her right leg started paining a little. She thought of taking second opinion and returned to her home the next weekend. She consulted another doctor, but he too told her it was nothing but just accumulation of fats due to no exercise and prescribed some painkillers for leg pain. She took painkillers and again left for her office location the next morning.
By end of October, she was not able to lift her right leg and she had lost around 20 kgs. She was also dieting a lot as the previous doctors had told the lumps were due to her weight and no exercise so she blamed weight loss on dieting. Her mother went to visit her because of her leg. She was not even able to walk by herself. Finally she decided to consult another doctor. This doctor also told the same thing. But he also told if she wanted to remove those lumps, it can be operated and removed. But there will not be any health issues if it is not operated and those lumps are still there.
As she wanted to marry soon, she decided to go for surgery to look good. The surgery was scheduled. But before that, the doctor told to get MRI of brain and leg to know the root cause of numbness in her legs. He also told to do test for tuberculosis and COVID-19 before admitting her. Her COVID-19 test was negative but tuberculosis test came positive and MRI of brain showed she had tuberculosis in her brain. The doctor prescribed medicines for tuberculosis and operated on the lumps. He sent the lumps which were removed from her body to biopsy for surety. The biopsy report came as cancer positive.
My sister had breast cancer which had spread to her brain. Due to damage in brain from cancer, the brain was not able to send signals to her leg, which is why her leg was not responding. The doctor had planned 5 cycles of chemotherapy and radiation. After 1st cycle her condition worsened drastically.
On 6th January, 2021, she got urinary tract infection which turned to be very critical. She had breathing problems later so was put on ventilator on 9th January.
Her soul left her body on 10th January, 2021 as her heart stopped beating.
Please don’t ever ignore any unusual signs in your body. Consult a doctor if you feel something is not right. If your gut feeling says the doctor isn’t giving proper advice, take a second opinion on it. Nothing is more valuable than your life.
Image credits: Anonymous
#3
I was 15 at the time and had noticed a lump on the side of my neck. The truth was I was 15 and thought that it was just a lump. That it was nothing. Obviously I went to the doctors who said that I was fine, I kept going back until I was referred to a local hospital where at this point another lump had grown on my neck, much larger and much more painful.
I after a long time was given a biopsy and an MRI scan to find out I needed to be referred to Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
this is where I found out that I had a stage 3 cancer called nasopharyngeal carcinoma. A large tumour starting in my nose moving to my neck all the way to the top of my spine. This one small lump which had grown to two over this period wasn’t just a lump. It was really serious. I started chemotherapy the next day because they just couldn’t wait any longer. my doctor said if it’d taken me another month to get diagnosed I would have been stage 4 terminal and I would have died.
Image credits: Emily Byrne
#4
My daughter who had been living with us for four years had a uti that wasnt responding to the antibiotics she was taking. 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 xrays 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 2 week later. We never had a clue. She was feeling fine until about 2 weeks before going into the hospital. We were sure it was a stone. That was in Oct. The door to her room is still closed and I have not been in there at all. I miss her terribly.
Image credits: Billie Anderson
#5
I was going to the VA for sinus infections and headaches. With the recent passing of the PACT ACT I figured I could potentially get a 30% disability rating or about a $300 monthly check. They sent me for a CT scan. I was there late on a Friday. They wouldn’t let me leave without talking too a doctor. Well all the doctors had left already. The nures walked me out. She told me schedule a mri. Not to drop everything but schedule it soon. A few weeks later I had an mri. The VA called me a week later and told me they were referring me to a neurosurgeon. I asked what for. They said I had a bone lesion. A few weeks later I went to see the neurosurgeon. I had researched bone lesions and figured he would tell me to have an mri every 6 months to keep an eye on it. Didn’t have my wife come as it was going to be a nothing appointment. I had scheduled to go checkout a car forsale afterwards.
the neurosurgeon tells me I have to have surgery. I ask why. He said to remove the tumor. I am confused, how is this a brain tumor? I ask to see pictures of what he is talking about. Here is what he showed me. The tumor had eaten away my skull.
Well, walking out of the hospital without losing it was the 2nd most difficult thing I have ever done. The most difficult was calling my wife and telling her. We scheduled my surgery for 3 weeks later.
The VA denied my benefits for sinus issues so no money. But they did pay for the whole surgery, $150k.
it has a happy ending. All good and playing volleyball and golf again. I am one lucky sob. I never had any symptoms and would have had no idea until it was too late. It was benign.
Image credits: Bob Dragolic
#6
When I was a child, I lived in Germany with my mother and father. We used to travel back to the UK every so often to see my grandparents.
I remember being about six years old and examining my grandmother’s gnarled, leathery-looking hands that were spotted with age. I couldn’t tear my eyes away as I wondered if my soft, pink, plump hands would ever look that freaky.
Then I noticed a tiny bruise under her thumbnail. Like all children, I was worried she’d hurt herself and asked what happened. She couldn’t recall and shrugged it off as probably nothing.
A few months later, we returned for another holiday. As my grandma gripped my hand, I turned hers over to see that dark purple smudge blotted beneath her thumbnail. It hadn’t gone away in months! I told my grandmother, quite seriously, that she should see a doctor. She laughed at my gravely concerned little face, but promised me she would.
From then on, in every phone call and every letter, I pestered her about seeing a doctor. I can recall being both delighted and annoyed as my parents laughed behind their hands at how cute it all was. I would not drop the subject.
We got a call from my grandfather not long after. My grandma was having urgent and lifesaving surgery to remove her entire thumb. That stubborn little bruise was actually an extremely vicious and malignant cancer. Luckily, she’d kept her word and seen the doctor as promised, or it’s likely she wouldn’t still be here today, 27 years later.
I have no idea why I so urgently pushed her to see a doctor, as such a young child I couldn’t possibly have understood that a tiny bruise could be something so sinister. A very insistent voice inside me, that I’m still not quite sure was my own, thankfully wouldn’t let it go.
Image credits: Hannah Marie
#7
My Dad was having headaches. He thought he needed a new prescription for his glasses. But after a particularly nasty headache hit him like lightening and literally floored him, I took him to the ER. Two shots of Demerol later and Dad was still in agony. The ER doc asked me how long my Dad had been an addict and I ripped him a new one. My Dad never did drugs. The doc ordered a CT scan just to shut me up. Turned out Dad had a brain tumor. They did surgery 2 days later (they had to get the swelling down first) and gave Dad 3–6 months. He lived 6 1/2 years and lived very well. Only real side effect was he couldn’t deal with crowds or a lot of noise. He spent the time visiting everyone he loved. When he died, there was nothing left undone or unsaid.
Image credits: DeAnn Robinson
#8
It all started after I scratched myself on a piece of metal on my moms door. The scratch wasn’t deep… I never even bled from it.
A red lump came up, which looked and itched like a mosquito bite. Over the course of 3 weeks, it evolved into a fleshy bump with a yellow center. I thought it was a boil and tried to pinch it but there was no pus in it.
I knew after 3 weeks there was something wrong so I made an appointment with a dermatologist to have it biopsied. It turns out I had squamous cell skin cancer. It came up that quickly from a small scratch.
Image credits: Ida Kern
#9
When I was 35 years old, I noticed a red splotch on my right breast after I got out of the shower one morning. I didn’t give it much thought until it didn’t go away after a few days and started swelling. I went to my doctor, and she thought that I had mastitis and prescribed an antibiotic. It still didn’t go away so she prescribed a second course. One day I did an internet search for “red spot on breast” and the first thing that came up was a webpage about inflammatory breast cancer. It was very rare, but when I read the symptoms, I knew. I went back to my doctor and she sent me to a breast specialist, who immediately scheduled a biopsy. As it turned out, I had stage 3 inflammatory breast cancer, which is an extremely aggressive and fast-spreading cancer with a 45% survival rate. That was 12 years ago, and my surgery, chemo and radiation were successful. The best advice I can offer everyone is to trust your gut and advocate for yourself.
Image credits: Katy Lea
#10
I have a small raised red dot on my leg. Thought nothing of it. Thought it was a spot or a cut. It turns out it’s a form of skin cancer. So if you get this and it grows see your doctor
Image credits: Sophia Lillie
#11
When I was a little boy of about 10 years old, I told my mother that I thought I needed a new prescription for my glasses. I told her I was having difficulty seeing the blackboard in class at school. This was 1963 and I was living with my family in Myrtle Beach South Carolina. So my mother thinking it was going to be a routine check up took me to the local ophthalmologist who always checked my vision.
At that point I thought that I was simply going to walk out with a new prescription and life would go on. My ophthalmologist was a wonderful old gentleman who was a very careful and very thoughtful doctor. He was the kind of person with whom you could really trust and feel comfortable. Even now I can vividly picture him and the examination room, as that intensely bright light, that has occurred hundreds of times throughout my life, came close to my dialated eyes. After examining my eyes he turned to me, my mother was in the waiting room, and said that I was going blind in my left eye. He told me I had a detached retina and that I needed surgery immediately! Ironically, what he told me next was actually more impactful than being told that I was going blind in my left eye. He told me that I would never ever be able to play football again. When I heard that, I bolted out of the exam room, ran through the waiting room out the front door and sat down on the sidewalk outside his office weeping. My mother shocked at my actions thought what in the world is going on? After collecting me from outside she immediately went to the doctor and he told her that I needed to go to the medical college in Charleston South Carolina and have emergency surgery. That day we got in the car and drove over 100 miles to Charleston to the medical college and arrived at the department where the top eye surgeons examined me. They told my parents that I was not going blind in just one eye, I was going blind in both eyes. They then informed us that they were not capable of doing the surgery because of the extent of the retinal damage. They recommended that we travel to Johns Hopkins in Maryland, the only place at that time capable of performing the kind of surgery I needed. Suffice it to say the head of ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins took my case and did the surgery. I found out later that the members of the Presbyterian church that my family attended also prayed all that day for a successful surgery. 10 hours later the surgery was over and was a huge success. Ever since I have thanked God not only for my original doctor who detected my problem but also for all of the amazing medical professionals who were instrumental in my treatment.
One final caveat… the wonderful doctor who first discovered my condition knew that I had to have surgery on both eyes , apparently as I found out later he didn’t have the heart to tell me that my condition was so dire.
Image credits: Joe W Johnston
#12
In 2013, I was eating a burger when suddenly after taking a bite, I could no longer open my mouth. I was terrified and had no idea why this just happened. I’ve dealt with TMJ for many years and assumed it had to be just that, & maybe a warm compress & massaging my jaw would unlock my mouth. Nothing seemed to work, and I could only fit about the size of my pinky in my mouth. I couldn’t even fit a spoon in. So I made an appointment with an oral surgeon to figure out what was going on. He did a physical exam, and knew right away it must be an issue with the disc in my jaw joint. He scheduled an urgent surgery to get it put back in, but ordered an MRI to go over just to be certain.
The morning of surgery, he met with me briefly before it was time to go under. He said, “ we got your results back from the mri, and there are two things I need to go over with you.” He then proceeded to tell me those two things.
1st, they confirmed the disc in my jaw slipped out and did not go back in when I took that bite out of my burger. So surgery was definitely needed to correct the issue.
2nd, “I need you to see a neurologist. We found a mass in your brain. I’m not a medical doctor & I cant diagnose this for you. Take a copy of your MRI to get this checked out as soon as possible.”
In that moment, which is all I really had to process what he said, my entire world just stopped. This was the most unexpected and terrifying news to receive just minutes before I was to go under for jaw surgery. I will never forget the way I felt in that moment.
It turned out to be a large cyst wedged in between the fossas of my left temporal lobe in my brain. Something my doctors closely monitor but are unable to remove at the moment. Whenever I think about it, it still gets me feeling anxious, especially since it’s still there and growing little by little each year.
EDIT:
Wow! I did not expect my story to get as much attention as it has! I am truly grateful for the kindness and dialogue.
I just wanted to throw some more info here since I didn’t go into much detail:
*The Dr I saw for my surgery was a dental surgeon (DDS) so he was unable to diagnose me regarding the mass.
*A little fun fact: since my jaw was almost shut, I had to remain awake during my surgery. The doctors were unable to place a breathing tube down my throat, so that was the only option. I was given some medication but remember most of it. I ALSO had 4 wisdom teeth extracted right after they fixed my jaw. So I had a 2 in 1 surgery!
*The neurologists that diagnosed me let me know that it was too risky to surgically remove due to the location of the cyst. It’s wedged in between the fossas of my brain & not on the surface. They said it would cause brain damage to go in and extract it. So instead they feel more comfortable monitoring it for growth. The only way they would actually perform surgery is if it ruptures, which would cause damage on its own. (The scariest part of this whole thing).
So that’s kind of where I’m at right now. It really is terrifying. If it was just a benign tumor, I think I would feel better about it making a home up there, but since it’s a cyst, it has the possibility of rupturing. That’s the most difficult part for me. Optimism has gotten me this far and through it all, so that’s the wave I’ll continue to ride. Thank you all again for your kind words & for engaging with my post!
Image credits: Sophia Parveen
#13
Just over 20 years ago, I had cut my thumb and it wasn’t healing. It needed a couple of stitches — no big deal. My normal doctor was away and I had a locum.
As an afterthought, I asked for a prescription for the pill. I only took it for regularity as I had been told I couldn’t have kids due to severe endometritis.
The doctor wanted to do a pregnancy test first as I was a few days late. I told him that was normal for my body (even on the pill), but he insisted.
As we waited for the result, he started writing out the prescription. Suddenly he looked at the test, looked at me and said, ‘Congratulations! You’re pregnant!’
My life was complicated back then and to say it was a shock was an understatement. I saw stars and walked out in a daze.
My beautiful golden haired girl entered the world 9 months later (the photo is of her and her beautiful partner) and changed my life. She is the best thing that ever happened to me. We are best friends and talk nearly every day.
She taught me unconditional love and loyalty and has the purest heart of anyone I know.
To say I love my daughter is an understatement.
Image credits: Tan Turner
#14
When I was 25 years old (2016) I was feeling tired and run down a lot. My girlfriend at the time told me I should see a doctor, but I really don’t like going to the doctor.
I eventually decided to take her advice and got an appointment for a checkup.
During the checkup the doctor was feeling my throat and said something feels wrong. He decided to send me to a specialist to have some more tests done.
(rewind 3 years)
My 51 year old father noticed a big lump in his throat that appeared almost out of nowhere. After several tests we found out he had a rare type of thyroid cancer called Anaplastic thyroid cancer. The mortality rate is almost 100% making it one of the deadliest diseases there is. It’s also extremely rare (especially for men), and almost always occurs in people over 60. At the time the doctor said there’s a very good chance he had been exposed to radiation at some point. After about 3 months of the most horrific things I could ever imagine happening to a human, my dad died.
(fast forward 3 years)
I went to UCLA and had all sorts of biopsies and imaging done, but everything came back inconclusive. They said that usually they’d just assume it was a cyst but because of my fathers history they recommended doing a partial thyroidectomy on my right side.
I did the surgery and a few days later the doctor tells me there was a lot of cancer on my thyroid and even though there’s no problem with my left side yet we should remove that as well just in case.
We waited a few weeks to let the initial wound heal and then they removed the other side.
A few days later my doctor calls me and tells me that they found cancer on this side as well and some cancer on my lymph nodes, but she’s confident that they caught it quick enough so that it wouldn’t have gone to my lymphatic system.
So far so good. I’m going to be on thyroid medication for the rest of my life and I have big scar on my throat, but I’m alive. Fortunately it was just papillary thyroid cancer, but they believed that it very well could have progressed to what happened to my father.
Again the doctor said that it sounds like we may have been exposed to radiation.
Kind of off topic, but I found out a couple years later that there was a huge nuclear disaster that has been covered up by the government and Boeing for many years where I grew up. I lived in the hills of Chatsworth California and the nuclear disaster happened just a couple miles away. There has been an explosion in that area and all around Los Angeles of abnormal cancers similar to mine and my dads happening for decades. Lots of cancer survivors are still working to get the site cleaned up, but there is a lot of money fighting back. If you’re at all interested in learning more about this the nuclear site is called the Santa Susana Field Laboratory
Image credits: Jeremy L
#15
I was probably 7–8 years old.
One pretty morning, I developed severe stomachache but my mother thought, she’s just blabbering excuses to not go to school. However, I kept my statement sharp that this is something serious.
She took me to the Military hospital and as usual I was put under various blood tests and X rays.
There, back at home, some mosquitoes started troubling my father, so he opened the drawer to find the old mosquito solution of that time, the tikki or mat which was kept on light bulbs.
Doctors didn’t find something significant, and my mother scolded me pretty badly for Missing the school.
But, when we reached back home, my father showed us something uncertain.
2–3 spitted out, chewed mosquito mats. It was me.
I chewed them last evening without knowing that they are not a snack but a mosquito killer.
Later on, when this thing was informed to the Doctors, they immediately called me back.
I was admitted in a Hospital for a week where my whole body was put under processes of detoxification.
Finally, I made it alive.
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Image credits: Tiksha Rohilla
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