1. “I was fooling around in a mall as a kid. So, my dad grabbed me by the neck to make me behave. He felt a lump on my neck and immediately began to get nervous. We went to the doctor the next day, caught the cancer before it spread, and were able to surgically remove it about a month later. Got super lucky.” –SockFeetLover

2. “My sister noticed a small painful lump in her breast, shortly after having her second child. The doctor diagnosed a blocked mammary gland. A couple of weeks later, it still wasn’t gone. Again, the doctor said it was because of the blocked gland. Months later, it’s still not gone and she insists on getting a second opinion. It was stage 3 breast cancer. We got a double mastectomy, immediately followed by months of agonizing radiation and chemo, only to find out it’s now stage 4. She’s been stable for a few years but now it’s spreading again and we don’t know how long we have with her. Trying to be as positive as possible.” –KidGorgeous19

3. “My 33-year-old husband was diagnosed with inoperable glioblastoma (most aggressive brain cancer) in January 2019, when he was 31. What caused him to get a check was the persistent headache that didn’t go away with paracetamols and sleep. We discovered the tumors after taking an MRI. Needless to say, our lives were changed forever.” –syarkbait

4. “My head and neck area became very swollen. At first, I thought I was just getting fat, so I worked out a lot and ate better. This did not help. I also went to a local clinic and they thought it might be an allergic reaction and gave me steroids, which also didn’t help. The thing that finally made me go to the emergency room and not leave until I had an answer is that I started to develop unexplained bruises on my chest. Turns out, I had a huge tumor in my chest which had grown around my heart and was compressing the superior vena cava so blood couldn’t flow back down from my head. Not great! The good news is that it turned out to be very treatable and I’ve been cancer free for 11 years now.” –eskimospy212

5. “Super heavy periods that would last for 10 or more days. Got an IUD to help control bleeding. Actually hemorrhaged so bad the IUD came out. Endometrial Cancer, a huge tumor in my uterus. Ladies, it’s not normal to need a tampon and pad at the same time. It’s not normal to need to change them every 10 minutes or even every hour. An average period is 2-3 tablespoons, just for reference.” –Icewaterforall

6. “On Christmas Eve 2018, my dad lost the ability to talk, except for the phrase “this is crazy.” We called paramedics because we thought he’d had a stroke. We got him to the hospital where the imaging showed a brain tumor on the outside edge of his brain. The swelling caused him to have a seizure. He was transferred to a bigger local hospital. They did full body scans because it’s pretty rare to just have brain cancer- usually, it’s a secondary for another cancer site. We got lucky in that it was the sole spot. Went through a craniotomy and 5 rounds of high dose inpatient chemo, and he’s one year in remission.” -Ashliek

7. “My cat found my cancer and bugged me about it until I went to the doctor. My cat has always liked to lay on me and “knead” parts of my body with her paws. For 7 years it was random, various parts of my body. Then for about 6 months, she started to focus on one spot on my chest. At first, I chalked it up to her wanting to be closer to my face, but after a couple of months, I noticed that the spot she was focused on had become very tender. Then, I felt a small lump in that spot. Due to my (relatively young age), it took me a couple of months to convince one of my doctors that it was a potential issue, but eventually, I got tested and had a pretty giant tumor in that spot (plus other tumors elsewhere). Yes, kitty got lots of cuddles, wet food, and Greenies as a thank you.” –plum_awe

8. “My dad thought he had the flu and went to urgent care, by the end of the weekend he had started chemotherapy. He had acute myeloid leukemia, made it 6 years though.” –DuelOstrich

9. “My brother was 11 when he started experiencing symptoms. He started losing a lot of weight, and when he was playing soccer it looked like he was running through mud and couldn’t keep up with everyone else. My parents took him to the pediatrician and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. One day, he woke up and couldn’t stop throwing up. When he tried to run to the bathroom, he kept running into the door frame and couldn’t walk straight. He said the lights were giving him a headache. We took him to the emergency room and they found that he had a brain tumor, and had emergency brain surgery the next day. We were extremely lucky that they decided to do a CAT scan at the ER, apparently, they don’t usually do them on kids. Two brain surgeries and a year and a half of chemo later, and he is in remission now!” –malsteve

10. “My dad was in bed one night and said he felt like he was drowning then began coughing up blood.” –IHavAnAddiction

11. “I was about 12 and I noticed a gray spot in my left eye so I went to the eye doctor it turned out to be retinoblastoma. And fast forward about 1 week, I had my eye removed and started chemo. And now, I have a glass eye that has to get redone every 2 years until I was 16.” -spot9707

12. “My brother started forgetting words even while looking at objects and could not say them. He could write them or even describe all parts of the object but not name like shoe laces. Soon, he lost peripheral vision even before he could get to his primary doctor. All that within just 3 weeks. Diagnosed with a glioblastoma in February and died in June.” –goddessgaga

These stories are just painful and heartbreaking. We wish nobody goes through it, ever!