\u2014Active-Celery-4932<\/a><\/p>\n 2. “I felt really unwell for weeks, almost like I had the flu. Apparently, my immune system was reacting and fighting the cancer. Luckily, my doctor took my symptoms seriously very quickly and sent me for imaging. They found a five-centimeter tumor in my lung. After it was surgically removed, pathology showed that it was actually a metastasis<\/a> from a malignant melanoma I had removed back in 2017. So I started immunotherapy after that. Unfortunately, about eight weeks ago, I developed another metastasis, this time in my thigh bone. That one I definitely noticed because the pain became really severe. Right now, things aren’t looking good, and my prognosis is pretty bad. I don’t know if I’m going to make it, but we’re fighting.”<\/p>\n \u2014Lucypenny4683<\/a><\/p>\n 3. “Not me, but this is about my daughter. Everything was very sudden for us\/her. She was 13 months old and had been having some constipation issues, which we thought we were working on with her pediatrician. Suddenly, she woke up screaming in pain on New Year’s Day; she was totally inconsolable. We headed to the emergency room when we noticed her legs were not working at all. She had taken her first steps only a couple of weeks earlier; all of a sudden, she couldn’t stand, walk, or even move her legs. She was diagnosed with stage 4 yolk sac carcinoma<\/a> that had spread up her spine and fractured her L1, destroying the discs above and below it. After about six months of treatment, she’s been in remission for five years as of July.”<\/p>\n \u2014patd1<\/a><\/p>\n Related: “Think You Can Triage These Fictional ER Patients Under Pressure?”<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014yournewfave<\/a><\/p>\n 5. “I wheezed for the first time in my life with a cold at 48 years old. I initially blew it off, but then it happened again a few weeks later with another cold. I went to see my family doctor, who was concerned and ordered a chest X-ray, which showed a mass in my lung. The mass turned out to be lung cancer<\/a>. I’ve never smoked; just bad luck. Luckily, it was caught early, and I’m doing OK.”<\/p>\n \u2014A_rwolf_wife<\/a><\/p>\n 6. “For a while, coughing or sneezing would send such intense pain down my leg that I would lose feeling, and my leg would give out. Also, I could feel water dripping down my leg that wasn’t there; it felt like my leg was dipped in an ice bath. It turns out that there was a tumor in my spinal cord growing out of my nerve. I had such severe, nonstop pain that I debated suicide as more doctors brushed me off.”<\/p>\n \u2014cat_gato_neko<\/a><\/p>\n 7. “I had a lump below the belt. I had two doctors tell me it was a hernia and that if I could live with it, I didn’t have to get it fixed. My third doctor was a complete joke, but he sent me to a urologist who also didn’t find anything, but did say he wanted to send my X-rays to a radiologist and have him look it over, and he’d get back to me. That urologist ended up chasing me across his parking lot as I was leaving and had that look on his face. I ended up in the hospital that night to get scans and ultimately find out I had lymphoma.”<\/p>\n \u2014somniforousalmondeye<\/a><\/p>\n Tom Werner \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n 8. “When I had pain that would double me over hours after eating, I knew something was wrong. Turns out I had a tumor that was just past my appendix that was obstructing anything passing. To get rid of it, they surgically removed it along with one-third of my colon. Now I’ve had a semicolon for 20 years and counting!”<\/p>\n \u2014boheme013<\/a><\/p>\n 9. “I’ve had cancer twice. I can remember as a kid being sick and feeling physically exhausted. I was 6 years old, and that symptom turned out to be leukemia<\/a>. In my early 20s, I was about to drive and felt suddenly very drunk. I had a seizure that turned out to be a sign of a type 3 astrocytoma brain tumor<\/a>. In my 40s now and still kicking.”<\/p>\n \u2014brewandbeast<\/a><\/p>\n 10. “Food poisoning saved my life. I had a severe case of food poisoning and had been dealing with lifelong digestive issues. I drove myself to the emergency room with a super high fever; my white blood cell count came back through the roof. They were worried about a perforation, so into the CT I went. I received IV antibiotics and lots of IV fluids. The images came back with no perforation, but they sent me home and were very insistent that I call my gastrointestinal doctor on Monday. Long story short, I was diagnosed with stage 2 clear cell renal carcinoma<\/a>. My right kidney was removed a few months later since it was encapsulated, and we had time. The couple of people I told, mostly family, were freaking out. Based on all of the research I read, 90%-plus five-year survival rates.”<\/p>\n \u2014NiveusBear<\/a><\/p>\n “I found the best Davinci robotic surgeon on the West Coast and called him. It took about two weeks to get the pathology report. Turns out I had a rare and extremely aggressive cancer called small cell renal carcinoma. My doctor explained to me that I would have died in the next five years had we not found it when we did. I’ll celebrate 10 years of being cancer-free next June. I still have to have blood work every 90 days, and I had yearly full-body MRIs for five years following surgery. Every day at this point in my life is bonus time.”<\/p>\n \u2014NiveusBear<\/a><\/p>\n Related: “Former Patients Are Sharing Their Wildest Doctor Visits And Holy Crap”<\/a><\/p>\n Tom Werner \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n 11. “This isn’t my story, but my mother’s. At 73, she started having a spotty discharge in her underwear again. The doctor she saw passed it off as ‘hormones’ and put her on the Pill. That made it worse, so he switched pills, which didn’t make it better. He told her to lose weight (of course) and come back in six months if the issue hadn’t cleared up. It was only because that doctor went on holiday and she talked to his locum, who immediately sent her to a gynecologist and then a specialist oncologist, that she was diagnosed at all. She had stage 3\/4 uterine cancer<\/a> (note: not cervical cancer). She had a hysterectomy and radiotherapy, but the specialist oncologist said that putting her on the Pill was a huge mistake because such cancers respond to hormones.”<\/p>\n “She died from the metastatic cancers that may not have happened had the original doctor done his darn job. A 73-year-old woman doesn’t suddenly start having a period again.”<\/p>\n \u2014Yowie9644<\/a><\/p>\n 12. “I started having really bad shortness of breath, like the worst kind of panic attack. It turned into a wet, whistling cough, and my primary care doctor ordered a chest CT. Doctors said it looked like pneumonia, but it didn’t go away for months. I was treated for pneumonia for three months before I collapsed at work, and my boss drove me to the emergency room. I was admitted for, you guessed it, just really bad pneumonia. It would be another month in the hospital before I got the diagnosis of stage 4 lymphoma; by then, it was in my lungs and brainstem.””One of the pulmonary doctors on rotation looked at my tests, imaging, and blood work and went, ‘Hey, this is super weird, let’s do a biopsy.’ I owe him my life. I try not to get too mad about how long it took because the pandemic was just kicking off seriously in the US, and everything was so chaotic. I still get a little heated about it sometimes. You have to advocate for yourself, even if it’s hard and you’re getting talked over by ‘the experts.’ You know your body; listen to what it’s telling you.”<\/p>\n \u2014MerelyMalice<\/a><\/p>\n 13. “I went to use the bathroom and thought I had the bubble guts. I wound up passing enough blood to require two blood transfusions once I was rushed to the hospital. I found out I had stage 1 colon cancer<\/a> after a battery of tests. I had no symptoms before passing blood.”<\/p>\n \u2014Rewbee<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014Maddmaddmaddy<\/a><\/p>\n 15. “I had pain in my abdomen and got a CT scan. It showed an enlarged lymph node, so they took a biopsy. It came back negative. Then, four months later, I went out to eat with my family. I felt hungry, but when my food came, I just didn’t want to eat. I started having abdominal pain again and coughing up green stuff. I went to the doctor multiple times and had X-rays and tests, but still nothing. About a month later, I felt awful and asked my mom to meet me at my doctor’s. When she saw me, I knew something was seriously wrong from her face. They took blood and urine (which was the color of Coke), and I kept getting winded when I walked. Off to the emergency room from the doctor’s office. After the CT scan, the doctor said I had pancreatic cancer<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Related: “People Are Revealing What They Wish They Knew Before Taking GLP-1s”<\/a><\/p>\n “Mom looked at me, and all I could say was, ‘That means I’m going to die.’ I got admitted to the hospital. They put a stent in my bile duct because I was jaundiced, and it drained two liters of nasty green fluid out of my chest. They put in a tube that drains for the next three months. A pancreatic specialist came in and assured me it was definitely not pancreatic cancer, but that they were not sure what it was. I asked if they could call in an oncologist. The oncologist came in and said she was sure it was non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma<\/a>. A lymph node popped up on my neck two days later. It was biopsied, and she was right. She said I was about two weeks from dying.”<\/p>\n \u2014coobmaroog<\/a><\/p>\n 16. “I was so tired all the time, actually, not just tired but literally nodding off at work any chance I had. I could be sitting doing work, and I had to close my eyes for five minutes. Then, I noticed the lump on my neck. I went to the doctor and was then sent to different specialists. I came to find out I had\/have papillary carcinoma<\/a>. I had surgery to remove my thyroid and just got done with iodine radiation therapy, so hopefully I will be cancer-free!”<\/p>\n \u2014Accurate_Effect_<\/a><\/p>\n Jacob Wackerhausen \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n 17. “I thought I had a bad case of the flu, plus I was incredibly tired. When I was sitting in my car looking at the door to a rehearsal studio for a show I was in (singing in a chorus), I honestly didn’t think I could make it to the door. I decided to go to the doctor the next day after work. I went to work; my manager took one look at me and called the doctor, and got me in that afternoon. I took blood tests for possible influenza A. I got a phone call that evening telling me to go directly to the hospital, where they were expecting me. I started chemo the next morning, half an hour after being told I had APML<\/a>, an uncommon form of leukemia. I got accepted for a drug trial, so instead of two years of treatment, I had eight months of five days a week chemo.””This was in January 2020. Man, I love the doctor who discovered arsenic and retinoic acid and some other gruesome stuff; it kills that shit. I had over 300 doses, and it took me a year to be in remission. At five years, I was officially declared cured. Thank goodness for the Australian health system, which meant that the only thing I paid for was parking. I have to say the first three months, when I was mostly an inpatient, were hard. I got through it with a lot of family and friends’ support. I am everlastingly grateful to the blood donors who supplied me with over 200 donations of whole blood, platelets, and plasma. I had been a blood donor myself, but had never really thought or imagined just how precious and appreciated those donations were. I look at life a whole lot differently now. Peace and blessings to all fighting the big battle right now.”<\/p>\n \u2014Grouchy_Pen_9209<\/a><\/p>\n 18. “I was 9 years old when I found out. I suddenly had excruciating pain in my stomach. My dad took me to the hospital, where they did an ultrasound. The woman doing it gasped and left the room. Five minutes later, the room was full of people. My dad looked horrified. No one told us anything then, but we both knew it wasn’t normal; we both knew something was seriously wrong. Turns out I had a massive tumor on my liver. That was the start of four years of operations, blood tests, and chemotherapy. At that time, there was a 20% chance of survival. I beat it twice; I am incredibly lucky.”<\/p>\n \u2014foundinthefire<\/a><\/p>\n 19. “In December, I woke up from a nap. Weirdly, my collarbone hurt, so I got up, looked in the mirror, and there was a lump, lima bean-sized. Now, I never notice my lymph nodes, not even when I’m sick, so I was a little freaked out. I Googled it, and the internet basically said if a lymph node swells up on\/around the collarbone, it’s bad news. Two weeks go by, and it is still swollen. I go to my normal doctor, and he was all, ‘It isn’t two centimeters, probably reactive; I’ll send you to the head and neck guy, get a CT scan.’ The CT scan showed lymph nodes that were reactive (still under 2 cm) and a mediastinal mass. The head and neck doctor performed an ultrasound and advised me to return in 4 weeks for a follow-up ultrasound.””He didn’t seem concerned. Four weeks passed, and I went back. Some of my neck lymph nodes changed shape (which is bad), and they did a fine-needle aspiration biopsy. Two days later, I got a call that I had classic Hodgkin’s lymphoma<\/a>. This was mid-January. I just finished chemo in July. I had symptoms, but just thought it was adjusting to my new job, being a mom of a 2-year-old, and stress from my husband. I was tired a lot, sweating through my shirt at night, itchy, and generally just felt like crap. None of it was extreme enough to make me think I needed to go to the doctor. If that lymph node hadn’t swelled up, who knows how long I would have gone without knowing I had cancer.”<\/p>\n \u2014JayThorns<\/a><\/p>\n Halfpoint Images \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n 20. “I was doing a plank; my boob itched, I scratched it and found the lump. I had no traditional signs or symptoms. I was 37 years old and six months prior had been to my annual gynecologist appointment, where she didn’t feel any lump. I was stage 2 B triple negative. Chemo was pretty easy, and I had a lot of success with chemo and surgery, but it’s hard to ever trust your body again. Since finishing treatment a year and a half ago, I’ve had three hospital visits, thinking I’m having a heart attack, but it’s always, and thankfully, something less serious that is a result of my treatment. Hypothyroidism, fatty liver, and asthma for the three visits, respectively. All things I never had before I was sick. Even after all that, I’m thankful to be here every single day on a level you wouldn’t understand unless you went through it.”<\/p>\n \u2014amyleeizmee<\/a><\/p>\n 21. “I had a pimple\/boil-looking sore on the back of my hand that wasn’t healing. Due to a family history of skin cancer, I asked my general practitioner to cut it off and biopsy it. He confidently expressed his opinion that it wasn’t anything bad, then cut it off. The biopsy results were the second deadliest skin cancer<\/a> you can get. Fortunately, he got it all, so I didn’t need more chopping.”<\/p>\n \u2014Impressive-Rock-2279<\/a><\/p>\n Related: “People Are Revealing The Tiny Habits That Transformed Their Lives For The Better”<\/a><\/p>\n 22. “When I was 28, I was doing my self-checks on my chest. I don’t know why, but something told me to. I found a lump on my left breast. I ignored it for three months because of insurance issues. When I finally went to the doctor to have it evaluated, I was sent to get an ultrasound the next week. Five minutes into the ultrasound, they got the doctor, and the doctor said I needed a mammogram immediately. Five minutes after the mammogram, they told me it looked like I had DCIS (a form of breast cancer)<\/a>. Two weeks later, I got a biopsy, and it was confirmed. It turned out to be stage 1 breast cancer. I had a double mastectomy and reconstruction less than two months later. No chemo that time, thankfully (or maybe not so thankfully). Three years later, I was doing my routine self-checks again.””I found another lump, but this time it was in my lymph nodes. I went back to the doctor and did the whole rigamarole again. Boom! Stage 3 metastatic breast cancer at 31. This time, an intense 16 weeks of chemo, six weeks of radiation, and a couple of surgeries were ahead. Now it’s been three years, and I’m still cancer-free. I’m still doing my self-checks and continuous routine blood work to make sure I’m still cancer-free. So far, so good! Here’s to another year of no cancer!”<\/p>\n \u2014warrior-kitty-91<\/a><\/p>\n MoMo Productions \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n 23. “I got checked out when a dog at an Alaskan Malamute rescue facility repeatedly sniffed my left side. I ended up being diagnosed with ovarian cancer<\/a> in 2011.”<\/p>\n \u20144Wonderwoman<\/a><\/p>\n 24. “For my dad, I remember he said he was exhausted doing simple things and needed naps just to combat the exhaustion. He worked out in the gym a lot, lifting weights, and was usually very muscular. He was losing weight really fast and noticeably, too. He had pancreatic cancer<\/a>. He was gone four months later.”<\/p>\n \u2014MeNicolesta<\/a><\/p>\n 25. “My mom is a super high-energy, hyperactive woman, and she didn’t show any obvious signs. She was actually caretaking for my stepdad, who had very aggressive cancer. He was at a cancer hospital, and she decided to go ahead and get her annual mammogram while she was there. The few years prior, she had been telling me after each yearly mammogram that they had found a lump, but that it was benign and they’d told her not to worry about it. The cancer hospital obviously did a much more thorough job and discovered that she had stage 4 lymphoma. A symptom that she’d had for years suddenly made sense, which was that she was prone to choking on food sometimes and swallowing, which she attributed to all the strep she had gotten when she was younger.””No, that was probably super cancer-swollen lymph nodes. Anyways, she (and I) are built like bulls, so she really didn’t show any other symptoms. She did immunotherapy treatment while still taking care of my stepfather and continues to. She just got told she was in remission.”<\/p>\n \u2014microplazma<\/a><\/p>\n Note: Responses have been edited for length\/clarity<\/p>\n Dial 988 in the United States to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline<\/a>. The 988 Lifeline is available 24\/7\/365. Your conversations are free and confidential. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/a>. The Trevor Project,<\/a> which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386.<\/p>\n Your daily brain workout: If You Can Actually Complete This 25-Word Mega Chain, You Deserve A Medal For Your Patience And Brainpower<\/a><\/p>\n Also in Health: “39 Shocking GLP-1 Side Effects That Have Nothing To Do With Weight”<\/a><\/p>\n Also in Health: “21 Extremely Candid Tweets About The “Suspected Plague” In Russia”<\/a><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/buzzfeed_articles_778\/f2dac2030d32297c19896d697d91d901.jpg\"\/)
4. “I suffered from a chronic stuffy nose and had trouble breathing through my nose. Most doctors told me it was allergies. I finally went to an ear, nose, and throat specialist, who did an MRI and saw that my adenoids were swollen. I had them removed, and after testing them, they found I had lymphoma<\/a>.”<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/buzzfeed_articles_778\/cd0384e17c85b75652dc7804b6ccac04.jpg\"\/)
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14. “My toddler fly-kicked me in the boob during a tantrum. I thought he broke something. I had it checked out with a doctor, and imaging found breast cancer<\/a>. From discovery to diagnosis, only one week elapsed. That tantrum probably saved my life.”<\/p>\n![\"Doctor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/buzzfeed_articles_778\/9dc7ade22d27b89d27513014efdc5cd1.jpg\"\/)
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While thinking about cancer is scary, it is so important to know the signs and get medical attention if you suspect you could be experiencing symptoms that might be cancer. If any cancer survivors are reading this and feel comfortable sharing their first signs, feel free to tell your story in the comments or the attached anonymous submission form. Your responses may help others feel less alone or encourage them to seek medical care if they’re experiencing similar symptoms.<\/p>\n