When I had thyroid cancer, absolutely not. I had no idea there was anything at all wrong, went to the doctor about a completely unrelated issue and he said, "has that cyst on your neck ever been evaluated?" I hadn't even noticed there was a cyst on my neck. He followed it up by telling me not to worry; he thought I was fine. I went to the specialist who was so laidback about it all that I left feeling pretty relaxed. Yeah, I was thinking before the appointment to get results, "I could hear I have cancer today," but deep down I was sort of counting down the hours before I no longer had to worry about that. It didn't work out that way.
My instinct, my doctor's instinct and I think the specialist's instinct were all that it was benign. Interestingly, my mum says she had a sense it wasn't going to end well.
Absolutely not. My initial cancer referral turned out to be an autoimmune condition, that didnt even come on my google radar. There are so many conditions, even some you may have never heard of.
Not at all. I had a mole on my shin from birth and it started to darken in colour. I left it a year, thinking it was nothing but promising myself that I would see the GP when I had some other ailment to visit them about. My GP wasn't concerned either but referred me anyway. Two weeks later I was told I had melanoma and I'm now Stage 3 after it spread to my groin & pelvic nodes. I have to stress though that melanoma doesn't usually produce any other symptoms until it's spread - only a dodgy looking mole.
