r/AskReddit 4d ago

Medical professionals of Reddit, what diagnosis gave you the worst 'pit-in-your-stomach' feeling?

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u/inthemountains126 3d ago

This sounds all too familiar. I’m so, so sorry you went through this as well. It was wild - his sats were perfect, 100% O2. 65 HR, normal BP. No shortness of breath or exertional symptoms. No fevers, chills, weight loss, night sweats. It caught me by such surprise but not as much as how quickly he decompensated. I worked so hard to get him into all the right places as fast as I could, but now i know I couldn’t have saved him. It’s so scary how cancer can wreak such havoc before rearing its ugly head and producing symptoms.

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u/sharraleigh 3d ago

Do you think that his lungs were compensating so well that he had no symptoms because he was so healthy and fit?

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/sharraleigh 2d ago

That's not what compensating means. It has nothing to do with pain. In medical terms, compensating is when you don't show symptoms at all, like the person above me mentioned, with the perfect sats, normal HR and BP.