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Does She Have Lung Cancer, or Was it a Fruit Pit?

A Seminole Heights woman thinks decades of breathing problems and a recent cancer diagnosis may have been caused by a nispero seed she accidentally swallowed 30 years ago, WTSP reports.

 

A Seminole Heights woman's lung cancer may have instead been a fruit pit that had been sitting in her lung since 1984.

Blanca Riveron, 62, had suffered from a nagging cough and labored breathing for 28 years, as WTSP 10 News reports. When she began coughing up blood five months ago, her doctors spotted images of a mass in her lung they suspected was cancer.

But after receiving the diagnosis, the station reports, Riveron's daughter remembered a story from 30 years ago when the woman accidentally swallowed the seed of a fruit called a nispero. Could that have been the cause of her breathing problems and the dark mass?

"I told my daughter no, it can't be it," Riveron told WTSP. "It's been 28 years — I mean it can't be it."

But a few weeks later, after a second endoscopy, a violent coughing spell brought up a seed, which Riveron said she thinks was sitting inside her all along.

Riveron has another check-up on her lungs scheduled in two weeks, WTSP reports, but she says she's already breathing much easier and thinks the pit was the cause.

Watch the station's full video report online.

Related Topics: Blanca Riveron, Lung Cancer, fruit pit, and nispero

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Sherri Lonon

10:29 am on Friday, April 27, 2012

That is amazing. I hope everything turns out OK for her!

Reply

Susan Long

10:41 am on Monday, December 31, 2012

That's my housekeeper and for several months we thought she was going to die from lung cancer. We were all relieved to find out what it really was. Amazing story!

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