Woman coughs up "tumor"

Above left is 62-year-old Bianca Riveron's lung x-ray showing a block spot that physicians told her was likely cancer. For decades, she had suffered from a constant cough and difficulty breathing. A few months ago, she coughed up blood and the doctors noticed the dark mass in her lung. But after a second endoscopy, Riveron coughed up the "tumor." Best guess is that it was the pit of a nispero fruit that Riveron inhaled nearly thirty years ago. "Lung ''cancer'' may have been fruit pit from 1984" (WTSP)

• [GawainLavers]

  I guess they don’t sprout after all.

• [OldBrownSquirrel]

   Previously…

• [Editz]

  Sounds like a ‘House’ episode.

• [SoItBegins]

  Proving that the body’s auto-repair systems can pull it together even under the strangest of circumstances.

• [Lobster]

  If only all tumors were fruit pits.

• [show me]

  It’s not a toomah!

• [Lexicat]

  Whew! Bet she’s breathing a sigh of relief. (ar ar ar)

• [JProffitt71]

  How the hell did she inhale that and survive in the first place? Around here we call that “choking to death.”

• [C.J. Hayes]

  From now on she will refer to her “cancer” as a seed of doubt.

• [Eark_the_Bunny]

  Now if she can only “cough up” the cash to pay the doctor.

• [ciran]

  I guess it didn’t grow on her, so she coughed it up

• [sprucie]

  This post confuses me. If I put a peach pit in the ground, it doesn’t grow into a peach — it grows into a tree, and the tree bears a peach. Are there really plants where pits grow into fruits like that? Because if not, this sounds awfully suspicious…

  • [PNWchemist]

    wut

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    The picture of the fruit is “for demonstration purposes only”.

• [etherist]

  I believe “nisperos” are loquats.

  Delicious, but please inhale them metaphorically, not literally.

• [Phil Shaffer]

  HA! Funny – The CT scan is a section from the abdomen, showing the liver and stomach and a bit of the spleen. The “dark spot” is air, most probably in the bowel. Cancers don’t’ appear as “black spots” in the lung on CT scans. They appear as white areas. Most probably what happened was she aspirated the seed, it obstructed a bronchus. Then the air in the lung is absorbed by the blood, and the area collapses, forming a white area, easily recognized as collapsed lung. Over time, though there would normally be inflammation in the collapsed area, causing it to look less like lung and more like cancer. Also, often cancer presents as a collapsed lung as a result of obstruction of the bronchus by a cancer. Another possible cause of confusion. 
  Really, they should just ask a radiologist before posting wrong information, we are not that hard to find. I guess it was just too much to ask to verify before publishing. They probably were on a deadline.
  More evidence that you should never take what you see in the media at face value.