A Doctor Said He’d Bet His House I Didn’t Have Cancer. He Was Wrong

Detailed summary

When I woke up, my left arm was swollen and discolored, and twice the size of my other arm. I was pain and didn't know what was happening.

The morning of the day I ended up in the hospital, I went for a run. I was in pretty much the best shape of my life at that point, but after about five miles, I started to feel off. It was July in North Carolina, so it was hot. I thought, “Maybe I pushed myself too hard.” When I got back to the house, I slammed a glass of water, walked over to the couch and passed out. When I woke up, my left arm was swollen and discolored; it was twice the size of my other arm. I was in so much pain and couldn’t understand what was happening.

I was in a new relationship at the time, and I was at my boyfriend Cody’s parents’ house, where we spent a lot of time together. We all piled in the car and went to the hospital. I waited four hours in the emergency room before seeing someone. When a technician finally took me back, I had a blood test, a chest X-ray and an ultrasound of my arm done. Afterward, we sat with a doctor and he told me I had a blood clot—a massive DVT, or deep vein thrombosis, in my left arm, starting at the top of my jugular down to the brachial in my elbow. It was two feet long. The doctor gave me a prescription blood thinner and sent me home.

The next morning I got a call from the ER; they said I needed to come back. Another doctor had come in that morning and reviewed the chest X-ray I did and found a shadow around my heart that needed more investigation, which no one had noticed the night before. I went back to the hospital and had a CT scan done. Afterward, another doctor told me I had a six-inch mediastinal mass in my chest, which had caused my blood clot.

At this point, I was still in so much pain, and I was concerned, but also confused. How did this happen? I was 26 years old. I was training for a half marathon. I’d had some other symptoms—my skin was itching, and I’d developed a sudden, painful sensitivity to alcohol—but they were easy to brush off. Overall, I was healthy.

That night, Cody’s parents urged me to get a second opinion.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Newsweek. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.