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“So Sad And Horrifying”: 80 Doctors Reveal The Diagnoses That Were The Hardest To Deliver
Healthcare workers have an incredibly important job. They help us through illnesses, injuries, and some of the hardest moments of our lives. Unfortunately, though, medicine can’t fix everything, and sometimes even the most skilled specialists have to deliver news they wish they didn’t have to.
One Redditor recently asked medical professionals to share the diagnoses that gave them the worst pit-in-the-stomach feeling, and they came through with plenty of heartbreaking responses. Scroll down to read some of them. Just be warned that the following stories contain upsetting and sensitive content.
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#1
My dad is a radiologist. Back when he was doing his residency rotations, he had an elderly woman come in, full of joy, talking about how happy she was that she was officially one year cancer free. He had to tell her that her scans were absolutely riddled with cancer. Everywhere. He cried telling her and she comforted him.
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#2
In my field (Neuromuscular Medicine) the biggest pit in my stomach comes when I am doing an EMG for something otherwise non-concerning and it starts to look like ALS. I’ll catch myself going from talking and joking with the patient to not talking at all and adding on more body parts to the test, which tends to confuse the patient. For example I’ll be checking the leg for weakness with pulling the toes up and I’ll then have to test the arm, muscles by the spine in the back, and sometimes the tongue.
When the patient asks why I am testing so many body parts, I have to tell them that I’m concerned about a disease that impacts the nerves that move the muscles. I try not to use the word “ALS” at this time because more confirmatory testing needs to take place before confirming a diagnosis.
It reminds me of a quote that I won’t get exactly right but you’ll get the idea.
“Each physician carries with them a tiny graveyard, where, every now and then, they go to pray.”
For anyone considering becoming a physician, please know that you’ll care so deeply about so many people while being told by the public that you do not. This job was absolutely the right choice for me, but cases like this take a toll that will wash over you in your most private moments.
If my rambling comment resonates with any other healthcare providers, or anyone for that matter, please consider seeing a therapist. Many of us don’t recognize how much we are suppressing until we look inward.
Sorry for the long comment that got off track a bit. Please take care of yourselves.
#3
Term stillbirth.
There’s never a good way to tell someone their baby [passed away] before it could even be born. No combination of words makes the delivery any easier. And you know when you see there’s no heartbeat on the ultrasound. You scan again because you gaslight yourself into hoping you’re wrong, even though you’re not new to scanning babies and the heart is obviously not moving. You add color flow to prove to yourself that what you’re seeing is the truth. And then you have to say it even though everyone in the room knows it. It’s not official until you say the words.
Those screaming sobs will always stay with me.
#4
Healthy kid has some new minor neurological symptom (tremor, headache, poor balance) and MRI shows big, huge, bad brain tumor.
#5
Patient with the same exact birthday as me, has a one year old in the waiting room, pregnant with her second, and I’m doing biopsies of her cancer, which was at least stage 3. So humbling and scary.
#6
Obviously very advanced, previously undiagnosed cancer presenting to ED for anything. Feeling multiple golf ball and baseball sized lumps or an abdomen full of tumor is sobering.
#7
Neurologist here. Seeing patchy muscle wasting, fasciculations in the tongue, asymmetric weakness onset over a couple of months and brisk reflexes in a young healthy, usually very friendly and lovely person.
(ALS).
#8
ED nurse here. I remember one time a patient was diagnosed with a dissecting abdominal aortic aneurysm; the MD told the patient he'd be rushed into surgery soon and to immediately settle any affairs and talk to his loved ones, as the likelihood of him not making it off the table was high.
It was just surreal seeing this guy talking to his wife and kids knowing it may be his last.
#9
Late teens patient diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease but CT showed metastatic colon cancer.
#10
My neighbor was babysitting my then 11 month old for the day. Her dad was my last patient of the day. Coming in for “sternal pain.” Initially suspected costochondritis as he told me he does 500 crunches and 100 pushups a day. Very well known legend in our town, the fittest of fit, non smoker. Chest Xray showed advanced incredibly rare type of lung cancer. No known successful treatment. She walked in to drop my son off right as I was pulling up the X-rays. My heart has never sunk that low. He [passed away] within 3 months.
#11
Veterinarian here to mix up the just horribly depressing human stories with a hopeful one.
The worst ‘pit-in-your-stomach’ diagnosis for me used to be FIP. (Feline Infections Peritonitis) It is caused by corona viruses, but seems to be more due to viral interactions, not one specific causative agent so no vaccine was ever able to be developed successfully.
Horrible, slow disease that, until recently, was entirely incurable. And it usually, but not exclusively, hit young cats. I’m never going to forget the family with the 8 month old kitten who hadn’t even wanted a cat…but whose kids just fell in love with this kitten…and eventually wore the parents down only to learn like 3 months later that this new member of the family was going to [perish] slowly and painfully and the best thing we could do was offer to euthanize it now.
BUT I promised hope and uplifting…this disease now has a CURE! Turns out Remdesivir (and a couple of its related molecules) works GREAT on this disease, like 80-99% cure rate great. While Gilead won’t actually license any of the family of molecules, or produce a veterinary labeled medicine, thanks to Remdesivir hitting the market (and being largely not that helpful) for COVID-19, there are legal ways to get ahold of a cure now. AND, despite not licensing it, they’ve (tacitly at least) made no move to enforce their patent against compounding pharmacies making versions of the medicine commercially for use in cats.
There’s lots of times I’ve felt that sinking feeling…but the feelings I got from FIP cases a decade ago still top the list. So to get to watch a cure be developed and become more and more accessible has been a career highlight.
#12
Non accidental trauma (NAT) in kids. I was taught during residency that if you have never diagnosed NAT, you aren’t looking hard enough. I think about those words a lot, and now I teach them to trainees.
#13
Fairly young patient came in with no symptoms after having low hemoglobin caught incidentally on routine bloodwork. Baseball-sized tumour in the stomach... these cases always haunt you.
#14
Paramedic here
0500 in the morning we were called to a house, mother was worried about her pre-teen daughter acting depressed and weird. Normal house, siblings having breakfast. I was tired, after 10 mins of waffling words from Mum where I semi zoned out she said something my partner picked up on, she had described a seizure. We recommended she see her GP.
That night I got called in for a transfer. Daughter had advanced metastatic brain tumour, off to a major hospital for treatment which essentially meant make her comfy while she [passes].
#15
OR Scrub Nurse
STAT Necrotizing Fasciitis cases.
Flesh eating disease. Advancing faster than we can pump high dose antibiotics into them. We basically rush them in and cut away everything infected we can as fast as we can while racing the clock on the patient being too sick to be under anesthesia safely anymore. Pack with iodine and race to the icu. I’ve seen a doctor follow the stretcher still wrapping the packing while they took off out of the OR.
Not only does my stomach drop for the patient, but it’s just the most awful case in every way imaginable. From equipment to smell to clean up all the way to the other end of the spectrum of watching what is actually happening to another human in front of you. No matter what reason you got into medicine, it wasn’t for that feeling.
#16
Older guy came in with a lump on his back that his wife told him to get checked out 6 months prior. He being the typical 50s rural male patient decided to wait until it was the size of a golf ball. He finally comes into clinic, we can see his chief complaint is the mass and swelling in his armpit in the EMR.
I was a resident at the time, my attending and I both knew it'd be bad before we went in the room. I watched my attending do a shave biopsy and the underlying tissue was just gray and black with pigment, obviously melanoma without even sending off for pathology.
Guy was a d**d man walking at that point. We basically told him so in the room before even sending it off for pathology. He no showed his follow up appointment.
#18
Im an ED nurse and was working triage one day. I had a lovely 22 year old lady come in who had given birth to her first child 3 months prior. She had a large, non-painful lump come up on her chest overnight. I knew it was cancer. I checked her chart the next week, and sure enough she was diagnosed with metastatic cancer, it was so far along that they couldn't find the primary. Poor thing. 22 years old and a brand new mother. I couldn't bring myself to check her chart again.
#19
18 year old kid was worried about an STD because his girlfriend found a lump. My stomach dropped when I examined him. Metastatic testicular cancer.
#20
6yo boy comes in with limping. MRI done - aggressive brain cancer. The surgeon and pediatrician explained it was inoperable - that he would start having issues swallowing, and he might need a nasogastric for nutrition. The parents stood up, grabbed the child and just left. It didn’t make sense to them and they were in complete denial and even anger. They said we were quacks and we must be wrong and were quite aggressive.
The child and his family represented 2 weeks later. He died soon after.
#21
Bacterial meningitis. In the lab we are the first to see it. It’s very scary to think about how close someone could be to the end while you look at their spinal fluid on a slide.
#22
Glioblastoma is a pretty bad one.
Also, any time I wake up a patient WAY earlier than they or their family were expecting. That means the cancer (usually something in the belly) was worse and had progressed more than anyone knew and the surgeons couldn’t even attempt to remove it.
#23
When I didn’t find a fetal heart beat on a patient at her 39 week prenatal appt. It’s happened twice in the last year. Full term fetal demise.
#24
Arriving on the scene of an accident and you can’t tell what kind of vehicle you’re looking at.
#25
Specific to my field (occupational therapy) when patients get spinal cord injuries and plateau after improvements. It all looks like they’ll recover mobility but you know they won’t, but they still think they will.
Or when you get a post stroke and you know recovery is minimal but they think they’ll recover fine.
#26
In my field - brief psychotic disorder or schizophreniform disorder. It doesn’t always happen, but often they convert to schizophrenia.
#27
“I’ve had a sore spot on the side of my tongue for two months and it just isn’t going away”. It was squamous cell carcinoma, the patient was gone about 12 months later. The initial treatment actually went quite well apparently, but it metastasized.
#28
Third-degree burns covering 50% of the total body surface. During my general surgery internship, I was on my trauma rotation. We brought in a 75-year-old woman who had fallen into her large fireplace at home. After evaluating her in the trauma bay, where she was alert and oriented, we transferred her to the burn unit. Once the plastic surgeon in charge of the burn unit was briefed and examined her, he immediately ordered intubation and quietly informed our team that she would be gone in 72 hours, regardless of our interventions. She received aggressive resuscitation and serial debridements in the OR. Like clockwork she died almost exactly 72 hours later. I will never forget the pit in my stomach when i heard that prognosis. Her fate was sealed.
#29
As a nurse of 11.5 years I’ll have to say yesterday when my husband and I got the news our baby has a rare structural brain abnormality that will never allow him to live a normal life.
#30
I rotated in a pediatric PM&R clinic during my training. We had a young family come in with their two boys age 2 and 4. The attending physician (who already knew what their diagnosis was) asked me to observe the kiddos and tell him what I thought was going on.
I start watching the older one playing and oof it hit me hard. Positive Gower's sign.
For the non-medical people here, it basically means the kid was moving from sitting to standing like an old man which is seen in neuromuscular diseases.
I talked with the attending and yep, both boys had Duchenne's. The older one was showing symptoms but the younger one hadn't yet. It's weird looking at 2 perfect-looking kiddos giggling and playing when you know they'll be lucky to live into their 40s.
#31
As a medical laboratory scientist, seeing blasts (immature cells) in a pediatric spinal fluid. This generally means that treatment is going to have to be altered/more intense for those kids that have already gone through leukemia treatments.
#32
Harlequin disorder in a NICU baby and explaining to the parents that it does not go away. Don’t google it unless you’re okay with grotesque. Listening to the attending explain that there is no chance it will go away as mom stared off into space because Im sure it was all too much to take in shortly after an unplanned section. The way her eyes lost every bit of light was startling.
#33
Any time someone tells me they are just glad their cancer didn’t come back and the scan says “the cancer is back and it’s everywhere.”
I can still feel the sinking feeling I had when I read the results.
#34
Anytime I see pathological fractures, meaning fractures not caused by a fall or trauma but fractures that just happen. Especially if it’s in a femur.
9/10 it’s cancer that has metastasized to bone. The outlook is not great, and the pain is awful.
#36
Necrotizing fasciitis. She went from walking to the bathroom under her own power while casually chatting about her pets to floridly septic and unconscious in about 30 minutes. She didn’t make it.
#37
Patient came into the ED for difficulty finding her words. MRI after admission concerning for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human version of mad cow disease. Prion disorders scare the [hell] out of me.
#38
Had someone come in to my OCED for a migraine and left with a referral to neurology and oncology once they got back home for a suspected glioblastoma. The look on their partner’s face as they whispered, “but it was just a headache…” as I went over their discharge instructions about broke me. Never heard from them again as they were on a work trip.
It was one of our last before end of shift so it was pretty d**n somber the rest of the night.
#39
When I was in residency, I was rotating in peds ED. A kid came in for anemia. The blood counts came back and my attending went really quiet and then goes “aw frick”. She had critically low white blood cells and platelets as well as severe anemia. Multiple cell lines being low is usually a sign of bone marrow dysfunction, usually hematologic cancer. I still remember the grandma’s wailing in the hallway when she heard the news. I don’t know what the final diagnosis was but the attending was pretty sure leukemia.
#40
MD here.
Pronouncing kids d**d with their parents there.
Seeing an intoxicated man smiling while continuously vomiting pure blood from esophageal varices while trying to get a line in and he just dies right there sitting up.
Schizophrenic patient who tore her own eye out and swallowed it because it would help her “see inside herself”.
#41
The first covid patient we intubated in the ICU I worked at... we were all watching that point where bipap was failing and we would need to go in there for a more advanced airway. Knowing we were also at risk of contracting covid was pretty terrifying early days. My unit had seen one of the first cases of H1N1 and lost staff to it many years earlier, I think there was a lot of dread and PTSD with covid.
#42
Former EMT here. Had a patient who started with shortness of breath that just got worse and worse, and nothing helped. He started panicking as we loaded him up. He was clawing at the oxygen mask.
"Am I going to d*e?!" he asked my partner.
"We're going to do everything we can for you to make sure that doesn't happen," my partner replied after a pause. And in the end, we did.
But so did he.
About 15 minutes after we got him to the hospital, he died. Pulmonary embolism.
That pause, though... I don't know if he noticed it, but I did. I mean, you're never supposed to tell them they're going to be fine cause you can't know, but my partner really didn't know if the patient was going to make it. That pause was carefully selecting the right words. And I knew it.
#43
Teenage girl came in, with only some trouble eating and other vague discomforts. Nothing serious. Doctor doesn't trust it and kind of by chance sends us her samples. My lab diagnoses her with a rare metabolic disorder. This has no cure, and her version means she will likely pass within a few years after symptoms start. Transplant from an uncle to extend her life got rejected. But it got worse: my lab tests the rest of the family as these are genetic diseases. 3 of the 4 daughters have the disease and will likely not make it through puberty. I didn't get the full details of the mutations but mom has a weird variant but she's fine, but the dad has a known late onset version. Combined, they are deadly during puberty, and dad will likely get sick soon and pass as well.
In a few years, it will just be the mother and her one daughter, having lost everyone else as they slowly lose their bodily functions.
From minor discomfort to losing your entire family. There were a lot of tears.
#44
Participating in a right pneumonectomy for necrosis on a 17 year old who had vaped for 2 years.
#46
I'm a nurse.
A good friend of mine was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. As soon as he said the diagnosis, I knew it was likely in the late stages, and likely to be a terminal diagnosis.
#47
Five year old carried in through the ER doors by dad, in complete cardiac and respiratory standstill due to a ping pong ball stuck in his throat.
It was too late. So so sad.
#49
Patient discharged from the ER a couple days ago due to high blood pressure, readmitted for Bell's Palsy.
CT of the brain was negative for stroke.
I did his swallow eval. Oral stage was unremarkable...but he could not swallow anything no matter the texture or amount. Would start coughing, choking etc.
Bell's Palsy can affect the oral stage of swallow but never the pharyngeal stage.
I told his nurse "I know his CT was negative but can we ask the attending for a stat MRI of the head, this definitely isn't Bell's Palsy."
The agreed. MRIs will show fresh strokes whereas it may take a few days to show up on a CT.
I was right. MRI showed he had a brainstem stroke, too fresh for the CT to pick up on.
I got a certificate and a biiiiig plate of cookies for my "Good Catch!" .
#50
It wasn’t when I opened up the imaging for a “back pain” referral and saw a whole spine of cancer. What got me was when I loaded his screening chest CT from 7 months prior and saw the primary tumor on that scan, which was unnoticed. I had to tell an otherwise healthy active man I had never met that he had cancer, it had spread everywhere, he needed to go to the ER…*over video*.
#51
First time I saw cervical cancer. Placed a speculum to do a Pap smear and just immediately knew I was looking at very advanced cancer. There was nothing that remotely looked recognizable as cervix.
#52
I saw a patient for severe uncontrolled itch. I always order an SPEP as standard of care. It can be a clue that there’s underlying cancer, but I’ve never seen it be positive… until it was. I told the patient that one of the proteins was off, and it could very rarely be a sign of a serious underlying issue. She interrupted to ask if I thought she had cancer, and I said it’s possible. She looked devastated and said her uterine cancer must be back. Sure enough— she had no other signs, but her heme/onc said without this test, the cancer would have been caught at a more advanced age.
#53
GSW. Especially with children. Gas stations in Detroit are not at all safe.
#54
I work in a long term acute care hospital, so we see all kinds of illnesses, wounds, etc.
After many surgeries, attempts at wound care and A LOT of pain for the patient the doctors had to change their diagnosis to "Skin Failure".
Basically no matter the intervention, the skin, like any other organ can, just quit doing what it needed to do. Wouldn't heal, wouldn't regulate fluid balances or temperatures, etc.
Of course, with it came the inevitable comfort care conversation and a very sad family.
#55
Huntingtons.
Kursed_Valeth:
I'll never forget the first the I was caring for a patient with Huntington's. It still haunts me. If it ever happens to me I'm going to take myself out before I lose myself.
#56
My patient who had only delivered her baby (vaginally, but had prior c section) started having severe shoulder pain. Immediate red flag. She looked pale and clammy which is common with people in shock. I let the OBs know, immediately did an ultrasound, and she was back in the OR STAT. Her previous c section scar had ruptured and she ended up needing a ton of blood. The rupture had led to her abdomen filling with blood which is what made her have shoulder pain. As soon as she said shoulder pain it was red flags all around. If that had been ignored or minimized she could have definitely died.
#58
An autoimmune disorder that attacks your own red blood cells. Patient had a hemoglobin in like the fours. But a transfusion could send her body into a spiral. That one was crazy. But the one that always makes me terrified is epiglottitis. Where you're epiglottis swells up and you can't breathe.
#59
When I was a medical student, I did a sub-i in psych. I was seeing this pt who was the same age as me and in for psychosis. Turns out she had schizoaffective disorder, but she was in medical school during her first break and had to drop out. Her entire career as a physician was ruined because of it. She retained a lot of info from school too so she believed she was a surgeon / ER physician etc. Just hit reallly close to home. Not that I have a very extensive career or anything yet, but I think about her often.
#60
I was an intern doing my OBGYN rotation. My sister’s childhood friend (female early 20s) came in as a patient, sent in from the ER for ascites. Imaging suggested ovarian cancer with peritoneal implants.
Definitely not the worst case I’ve seen, but it was a devastating diagnosis in someone I’d known for over a decade. She was d**d within a year.
#61
I transported a woman with advanced CJD more than a decade ago. Her husband rode in the back with me and we chatted about it and her. He showed me the progressive imaging of her brain and told me that approximately two weeks prior she experienced unresolved tingling in her hands, so she went to the hospital and now she was going home for hospice. He explained she was a successful CFO, very active, etc. He generally looked bewildered and said everything was happening so fast he did not have time to process anything.. he was just trying to keep up with taking care of things as they came and keeping the family informed. I think about them a few times a year.
#62
I used to work on a leukaemia unit and even though I worked with leukaemia patients all day every day a brand new acute leukaemia patient would always fill me with dread. I never stopped feeling absolutely terrible for these patients.
#63
I work as a radiology tech, and there are so many moments that stick with me. You talk to patients, joke with them, hear them make plans for vacations, family gatherings, all while you are staring at their scan and realizing something is terribly wrong.
One case still haunts me. A middle‑aged guy came in just for persistent back pain, convinced it was just muscle strain from work. He told me he was going to take his kids camping the next weekend. Pulling up his CT scan, I saw his lungs were covered in metastatic lesions. He had absolutely no clue.
The worst part is we cannot break the news directly. We just hand the report over to the doctor, and send the patient home, knowing their whole world is about to fall apart in a day or two.
Healthy young adults, active parents, kids with tiny, harmless‑seeming symptoms. Nothing prepares you for seeing a life‑ending diagnosis pop up on screen out of nowhere. You learn to hide your shock on your face, but that heavy, sinking feeling in your stomach never really goes away.
#64
Liver failure in a 37 year old. Came in walking and talking, he thought it was his gallbladder. He died 48 hours later.
#65
I'm a paramedic in a really advanced, but semi rural system. We can do a lot for most things these days. The exception? That unexplained hypotension when you do a quick ultrasound and suddenly the abdominal aorta jumps to like 5cm+. It's just so defeating because there's so little I can do to even slow down d***h from a ruptured AAA and best case scenario if I'm at the closest point in the county to them my closest hospital that can treat it is 20min away. Some places it's an hour.
#66
Oncology PA here. Anytime I have to diagnose a malignancy in someone under the age of 30 a little piece of my soul dies.
#68
Got a patient who was supposed to be a simple stroke workup, which didn’t turn out to be so simple. His symptoms were non focal and really all over the place. Multiple sclerosis was on the top of the list for the differential, but was not what it actually ended up being. Turns out the guy had Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. Over the few days of admission his symptoms significantly worsened. He initially asked for a second opinion but ultimately decided against it. He was discharged home in less than a week, died at home on hospice 2 weeks later.
He was the second person I have known of to get CJD. My coworker’s mom died the same way a couple years earlier.
#69
I am a therapist and there are a few. I used to work primarily with kids and I specialize in neurodevelopmental disorders. Rett's is awful. I worked with a teenager a year watching her decline further and further knowing that her end was coming and there was nothing anyone could do. Her parents were lucky and had the ability to afford the best of care for her other parents have not been that lucky. I eventually had to stop. There was just nothing I could do anymore.
#70
Not a diagnosing professional, but a first responder.
There have been many, many instances of responding to 911 calls where family is like “help!” and the patient is clearly not salvageable. The sinking feeling in your stomach when you know you’re gonna do your best, but the outcome isn’t going to be good, and the family is in denial - it’s awful.
#71
Was working on the open heart team in a pediatric hospital when we had a teen come in with an enlarged heart and infectious processes going on. We opened his chest to remove fluid from around the heart and do something else that I just cannot recall after so many years. However, what I do recall is what this child’s heart looked like once we got in there.. it was like wet tissue paper and incredibly friable. There was nothing we could do. This poor kid was beyond saving and the whole team knew it. In my experience, there is such a sense of somberness and quiet that blankets the OR in times like this. In the OR, we are fixers… and we just couldn’t fix this. We were able to close the chest and whisk the teen back to the ICU for their parents to be with them when they passed away. Sigh….
#72
Advanced myelo-mesothelioma. Tragic. Gentleman worked his whole career at an asbestos plant.
#73
My first week of clinicals as a family nurse practitioner student. Woman came in with advanced breast cancer. Had the peau d’orange skin covering half of her breast. First saw her by myself for the whole health history and exam. Part of me died inside when I saw it.
#74
Quite specifically it’s pancreatic cancer. There’s something like a 5% survival rate. And I’m not sure about reoccurrence after remission.
The pancreas is a unique little organ and any time it gets angry it goes scorched earth. Some of the things that make it unique help the cancer spread rapidly before it’s detected. After I became a nurse the first time someone I knew was diagnosed with this I just thought, clear as day “oh, he’s already d**d”. And I was so *mad* at everyone trying to push him into treatment and all of the “rah rah rah” of it. Because treatment would take the time he had and make it so much worse.
#75
Veterinary medical professional here, I work in ER/Critical care and oncology. Anytime a cat comes in with an ATE (arterial thromboembolism) my heart breaks. If you don't know, it's basically throwing a clot, this usually occurs secondary to unknown heart disease, and presents as a cat that is suddenly paralyzed in the rear legs and is vocalizing in pain. The sounds from the cat are always terrible and the family is always in shock. There really isnt anything we can do unless the event is treated within 30 mins and it isnt something that can be medically managed. These patients always get me when they come in cause I know 99% of the time there is nothing we can do to make them better except for strong pain meds and ending their suffering.
#76
I used to work for a queer PCP in Manhattan, and I remember the doctor’s anxiety before having to tell a gay man that he had tested positive for HIV. (This was around 2010 or 2011.).
#77
As a vet tech- osteosarcoma.
An owner brings their dog in because it started limping and developed a “knot” on the leg the day before. We take x-rays and find bone cancer.
Osteosarcoma is also one of those cancers that spreads so fast that in a lot of cases it’s already metastasized elsewhere by the time we find the osteosarcoma, and it’s aggressive with a poor prognosis.
It’s just me, my fellow tech, and the vet looking at the screen knowing we are about to ruin someone’s day and give them awful news for what they probably thought was a sprain or fracture.
#79
Paramedic here.
Once had a 4yo that managed to put a key into an outlet. There was a loud nouse and the fuses tripped, but the kid was fine. Just had a big scare. My stomach was one big knot on the drive there. Might have done 50 in a 30 zone...
One that still makes me think about it, 35yo woman, 4th pregnancy, previous 3 were all c-sections du to anatomy of mom, and she reported her water breaking and contractions about 10mins apart and the incision site hurt a lot. She was told she'd need to have another c-section, and had already agreed, by her OB team and when we got to L&D the nurse/midwife didn't seem to take me seriously when I said 4th pregnancy, contractions now 4mins apart, previous 3 were c-sections and the incision/scar hurts. (That was one of the red flag things I was taught. Pain at c-section scar - more than normal contractions - could mean tearing of the scar tissue/uterus)
I wonder if the pt and baby are alright.
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