30 Times People Didn’t Think Their Symptoms Were A Big Deal, But They Were

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!

WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE EASILY DISGUSTED

I had a small nick on my toe. It got a little infected, I asked the doc about it while there and he put a Band-Aid on it. Then a few weeks later it was almost completely healed, but taking a long time. I was on vacation at the beach in Alabama on the Gulf Coast, and on my way home my foot was hurting. Two days later my whole toe was as red as a fire engine — I went back to the doctor who sent me to the hospital where they scraped layers and layers of my toe off with something that looked like a cheese grater. After an X-ray and inspection, they scheduled an amputation and took off most of my big toe. Apparently that small cut on my toe had had picked up a rapidly moving flesh-eating bacteria from the Gulf. It had dissolved the tip of my toe bones from the inside out, and if they had not chopped it when they did, it probably would have taken the rest of my foot within a week or two.

It honestly started as just a tiny slice that looked like a paper cut, so I don’t have a photo of that… here is the photo progression over the last three days I had two big toes, haha! The first one is the day I went to the hospital. The second one is after they scraped it to inspect the damage.

UPDATE… 09/15/2021…

Amazingly, I am going to add a second answer to my answer… damn that sounds bad. I just got out of the hospital last week. The prior answer was from just over 2 years ago. This time I had a small blister on my other foot which went off and on healing and not for several months until it finally did heal completely in July 2021… until mid August when it magically appeared again. At this point it had been cleared by several doctors and a wound care specialist. Anyhoo, within days I felt absolutely horrible. My leg was a little swollen and I had crazy amounts of chest pressure and pain. It quickly became a situation that I was having difficulty breathing, so I reluctantly went to the hospital thinking I might have Covid. They asked what my issue was, I replied very much jokingly, “Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up, haha!”

Long story short, we never made it past this small blister on my foot. Turns out I had a case of gaseous gangrene that had been brewing unnoticed for well over 2 weeks. They quickly ran some tests and got me into surgery by the next day where they removed 2 of my toes and part of my foot. The infection had basically eaten away all of the bone, muscle, and tissue and was working its way up my leg, causing the breathing problems as well. If you look it up, this sort of infection spreads rapidly and left untreated is generally fatal within 48 hours… again, I was going on like 14 days…

They ended up essentially having to carve out my foot nearly 3″ deep. I have never heard of a wound vac before, but they left the amputation open where I have a vacuum hooked up to it for the next 4–6 weeks while my body regrows and fills in the cavity. This is one of the craziest things I have ever seen on a living human literally still up and walking around… and it is ME! Haha! Check out these photos. The first two are the day before and when I went into the hospital. The next is my X-ray showing the void in my foot created by the infection, the next several are how it is coming along. You can see that vacuum tube is almost unnoticeable. The last is literally right now as I type this, you can see my old toe chop from the first story. The black on the left of my foot is just padding for the tubing, so no worries, things are looking great.

Thanks! for all the upvotes and comments! I really hope I do not have to add a third story in the future… lol.

In the spring of 2021 when Covid was still going strong, the company I worked for noticed that I was coughing a lot. I have bad allergies and told them that is what it mostly likely was. They insisted I go and get tested just to be sure. I went to urgent care and they did a rapid Covid test which came back negative.

They asked me if I had any other health issues and I told them that I had been feeling tired and got out of breath easily. I thought it was just because I was getting older. They did some blood work and it turns out my blood iron levels were only about one-fourth the level they were supposed to be, 3.4 instead of the minimum lower level of 12. I was severely anemic. They told me to go to the ER and get further checked out.

I went to the VA hospital. They determined I needed blood transfusions to get my iron levels to where they need to be. They admitted me for three days over which I received three pints of blood before they were satisfied my iron levels were going in the right direction. During my stay, they did a wide variety of tests to determine why my blood iron levels were so low including my first ever colonoscopy (I was 51).

When I woke up from the colonoscopy they have me the bad news; colon cancer. They took me straight to have a CT scan and after that they have me the really bad news; stage 4B colon cancer, only one stage less than the worst possible diagnosis. The coughing was due to the cancer having spread into a tumor on my lung. Stage 4B has only a 14% survival rate after five years. So far I'm 18 months into bi-weekly intensive chemotherapy. The side effects are hell but I'll do whatever it takes to be there for my daughter as long as possible.

Get those colonoscopies early! If I had, my life would be radically different.

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.

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

I was out of town and had stopped to go to the bathroom. As I relieved myself, a blood clot the size of a cigarette butt came out in my stream. I had been taking some diet pills and assumed that I was dehydrated and just needed to drink more fluids. The next evening it happened again.

I went to the ER where they performed a CT scan. The doctor came in and said it could just be an infection but that I needed to see my GP the first thing Monday morning. He gave me a copy of the scan for him to see.

Monday morning came and I went to see my GP and close friend. He took the CD of the scan, looked at it, and came back obviously stunned.

“You have a tumor the size of a tennis ball in your bladder and I’m 98% sure it’s cancer.”

By Wednesday I was in surgery. A week later I was told I had Stage 4 cancer that was in my bladder, prostate, and urethra. I needed to start chemo within two weeks. I would also lose all of these body parts by the end of the year and pee into a bag for the rest of my life. Oh, and I needed to get my affairs in order. It was bad.

I never had any pain or other symptoms until that clot. Cancer is a sneaky son-of-a-bitch.

The good news is that I beat the odds and I am cancer free after 5 years. Prayer works.

Edit: some have wondered why the first doctor didn’t tell me about the tumor that my GP saw two days later. Well, here is the rest of the story.

When we we walking out the door of the ER, we passed the attending nurse who said, “We are praying for you.” At the time I thought it was a strange remark to say to someone with an infection, especially one that could wait a few days to be treated.

It was only later that I realized that the ER doctor probably didn’t want to scare the crap out of me since I wouldn’t be seeing my GP until Monday morning. He did insist in very strong terms that I promise to see him immediately that morning which I did.

So, there wouldn’t have been anything accomplished by telling me then that I had a large tumor in my bladder or that he suspected I had cancer. He was simply being humane to a person he knew was probably in serious trouble and I appreciated his caring later on.

in 1974 I had this pimple on my right forearm that wouldn’t come to a head, nor would it go away. And it was tender. So after a couple of months I took it to my doctor who sent me to a dermatologist. It was an amelanotic melanoma, a melanoma with no pigment. Further examination found that it had metastacized and there was some in my lungs. IN 74, that was a death sentence. They gave me 6 months, max.

But I was 25 and otherwise healthy, so they did the hail mary pass, cut out the lobe of my lung with the most mets, and put me on a brutal chemotherapy regimen of a monthly injection of 2 grams of something they called DTIC. It’s so toxic that they usually spaced it out over five days a month. But as I said, I was young and healthy and they thought I could take it. So they gave me a five day course in one dose, every month for a year.

And once a month for a year, I’d fly back off the road to San Francisco, get poisoned, and then run for home to try and make it before the nausea began. I never did, but the nurses would give me a just-in-case garbage bag for when it hit. Then it was eight hours of agony, cramping and running at both ends. The pot pipe made it possible for me to keep breakfast down the next day as I tried to pull myself together in the face of the worst hangover on earth. And the next day, I’d be back on a plane, and back on tour. This went on for a year, but it was worth it. I beat terminal cancer, and the years since then have been the best years of my life

It’s April 2006, I’m getting ready to go out with some friends. I live at home and my mom yells 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's been with us for three or four years.

Anyway, I put it on her, she loses her shit and bites the palm of my hand. I bleed for a second or two, I wash it and tell my mom the cat’s collar is on.

The next day I’m at work and notice that my hand is blotchy and feels warm and “off,” which is the best way I can describe it. I call my mom who says it might be infected and that I should go to the hospital, It’s a Sunday night and I have a copay but I go to appease her.

I stopped off at home to grab dinner and then head to the ER. The ER nurse was actually a neighbor, and she asked what was going on. I show her my hand and she pulls up my long sleeve T-shirt and immediately gets me a room and an IV.

I’m sitting there confused as to what the big deal was. It turns out cats’ mouths are FILTHY and anytime they break the skin it’s a big deal and you should immediately go to a doctor.

The doctor told me, that I was within anywhere from 30–90 minutes away from the infection getting to my heart and the nurse, our friend, saw that it was at my shoulder and acted quickly. Had it gotten to my heart, an incredibly likely outcome would have been death. I was in the hospital for three days to clear out the infection.

The best part is after spending half a week in the hospital, I get home and that damn cat was sitting in the middle of my bed, and I swear she had a smirk on her face.

Not me, but my Mum.

This all started in April this year. She worked full time as a personal carer in the high care section of a local old age home from 2pm to 10pm 5 days a week.

Apart from occasional complaints of feeling tired, she was by all accounts and appearances heathly. Given she was a 67.5 yo woman working a physically active full time.job, this would be expected.

In early April Mum was helping a resident into a chair and the resident dropped their weight into the chair pulling Mum with him. From then on Mum had some pain in her lower right abdomen. Given her age and what she did was supposed to be a 2 carer manoeuvre we just thought it was a strain.

The pain persisted and she eventually went her doctor who sent her for a scan. The day after the scan her doctor called and demanded she come in right away. I could see Mum was scared and worried so I went with her.

We both went in to the doctor's office and on the 28th of April 2020 Mum was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

About 3 weeks later, during a short stint in hospital because of an increase in pain, Mum's oncologist came to us and said the cancer was eating her liver and she had 2 weeks. She'd only seen her oncologist once prior to this for their first appointment.

Mum came home and was determined to make her 48th Wedding Anniversary. She made this goal and passed in her bed a few days later surrounded by Dad, my sister and I on the 13th of June.

6.5 weeks from her diagnosis and just under 9 weeks from the incident at work she was gone. Nothing prepared us for something so small to have such a massive outcome.

This whole experience was a double edged sword for us.

We are thankful for the incident at her work. Without that we wouldn't have found out until much closer to the inevitable. Because of that we managed to rush my sister and her kids to us from interstate so Mum could spend a meaningful 2.5 weeks spending time with her grandkids.

But on the flip side because of the aggressiveness of the cancer we all only got a short time to make our last memories.

But on the other flip side it was in a way a blessing. There was no suffering. No having to deal treatments and side effects. While she was getting weaker by the day, we had 3 good weeks where she was Mum. And because of her work experience she knew when the time was up. She told us the day she knew she wasn't getting out of bed and asked for a syringe driver. We organised one the day after her anniversary and she was right, she never got out of bed again. The day after she got the syringe driver she was basically comatose until her passing.

A couple of weeks after her diagnosis she told me why she was so scared and worried after the doctor's call… She knew what was coming.

Being the superstitious spiritual person she was, she believed in old wives tales. One being that the person's dead mother would come calling for them shortly before their passing.

Apparently about 2 weeks before her April diagnosis her mother came to her in a dream and simply said “you're going to die from cancer”. Maybe their was some truth to these tales after all…

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.