So said the UK doctor to the woman whose aggressive throat and mouth cancer was undetectable after a productive coughing fit. From the Daily Mail:
Claire Osborn went on holiday for two weeks with her lorry driver husband Kevin, 53, and when she returned home in November, doctors told she had cancer. "They said the cancer was inoperable and I should be prepared for chemotherapy and radiation therapy."
But then:
Claire was at home with her family in Coventry when she felt a scratching sensation in her throat on October 11 last year. After five minutes coughing she felt 'something dislodge' and fly out of her mouth. She said: 'I put a tissue over my mouth and felt something fleshy come up my throat. It looked like a strip of liver. I didn't really think too much about it and threw it away. The next day I was in the car with my son and the same thing happened again but this time the lump was much bigger, about 2cm long. I knew something was very wrong so I went straight to my GP who sent the tissue sample away for tests."
Turns out something was not very wrong but freakishly right:
Head and Neck surgeon Gary Walton, who treated Claire, said: 'This patient basically coughed up her cancerous tumour. The tissue which she coughed up was tested and there was a malignancy. It was suspected that this could have been part of a tumour elsewhere in the body but scans showed she was clear. It is very uncommon to cough up cancer, but she did it."
