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Woman has cyst removed and is stunned to learn it had teeth, hair, and maybe even an eyeball

They're called teratomas, and they are the stuff of nightmares. They're also really misunderstood.

Canva Photos & E.dronism - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Woman lying in hospital bed.

The human body is fascinating and, to this day even, full of mysteries. Did you know there's a condition called Stoneman Syndrome where a person's ligaments slowly transform into bones? Or how about Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome where a person lives their entire life on the brink of orgasm? Or how about Auto-brewery Syndrome, where a person's gut biome naturally creates alcohol out of normal foods and beverages, thereby making them intoxicated without drinking a drop of booze?

The body is capable of extraordinary and extremely bizarre things, that's for sure.

That was certainly the case when 20-year-old Savannah Stuthers went in for a relatively routine cyst removal that turned out to be anything but.

Stuthers dealt with months of cramps, pain, and even bleeding—which doctors told her was normal after having an IUD inserted—before she couldn't take it anymore and took herself to the emergency room.

There, ER docs discovered a sizable cyst on one of her ovaries. Because the cyst was so large, the OBGYN at the hospital wanted to have it removed as soon as possible. Within a few days, Stuthers went under the knife.

When she woke up from the anesthesia, the doctors had news. Her mom was there to capture the moment Stuthers heard that what was removed from her body was no normal ovarian cyst. It was a teratoma—a unique kind of tumor that grows from germ cells (cells that eventually become sperm or, in Stuthers' case, eggs). Because of their origin, teratomas frequently grow hair and even teeth, along with various kinds of tissue. The teratoma inside Stuthers' ovary had all that, and more... The surgeons even thought Stuther's teratoma may have had an eyeball! (Later testing ruled this out... close call!)

Here's the exact moment Savannah Stuthers learned what had been growing inside of her:

teratoma, tumor, cancer, women's health, women, health, hospital, doctor, OBGYN, reproductive health, ovarian cystSavannah Struthers was horrified to learn that her cyst was actually not a cyst at all.www.tiktok.com

Stuthers posted the photo on TikTok where it went mega-viral to the tune of 34 million views. The morbid curiosity in the comment thread was absolutely off the charts. Many people had never heard of teratomas before, and most of them wish they still hadn't.

"Girl I could have went my entire life without looking up what a teratoma is," one wrote.

"I just looked at photos of teratomas and it made my arm get chills," a user added.

"it's crazy the body can actually create new eyes and teeth and THIS is what it chooses to use that ability for," said another.

Other commenters were just here to applaud the teratoma representation:

"this happened to me, they removed my ovary with the teratoma and my surgeous said it burst on her 😩 I was the first surgery of the day"

"this happened to my sister but there were brain cells in hers, causing her anti bodies to fight off both the teratoma braincells as well as her actual braincells putting her in a coma for 4 months. it was awful."

Of course, there were plenty of jokes, too:

"Why am I picturing Mike Wazoski from Monsters Inc???" one user said.

"Can we see it? ❌ Can it see us? ✅" joked another.

Mostly, people just wanted to know if they could see a picture of the actual teratoma. Stuthers did eventually show a photo briefly in a follow up video, but luckily for us, we can get a better look at these things through a plethora of high-res online images.

Ready? If you're squeamish, you might want to look away now.

teratoma, tumor, cancer, women's health, women, health, hospital, doctor, OBGYN, reproductive health, ovarian cystA teratoma with lots and lots of hair growth.Ed Uthman, MD. - Public Domain

Stuthers was not about to let her newfound virality go to waste: She set right to work busting myths and misconceptions about teratomas.

Obviously, with 34 million viewers and many who had never heard of teratomas, she was going to get a lot of questions. She also got a lot of opinions that needed correcting.

"Those things form from sperm so tell your man to get a better pull out game or use protection," one commenter said. In a response video, Stuthers simply wags her finger: Uh, no. Teratomas form from germ cells, which can turn into sperm, but they have nothing at all to do with sexual activity.

Another asked if the teratoma formed from a pregnancy gone wrong in the early stages. "So you would've maybe had a viable pregnancy but it didn't make it down into the uterus." Stuthers responded by citing that teratomas are actually congenital tumors, meaning they are present or begin forming prior to birth. So this was lurking in her body for a long time before it reached critical mass and had to be removed, and again, has nothing to do with her sexual activity whatsoever.

(Sorry, one more photo incoming.)

teratoma, tumor, cancer, women's health, women, health, hospital, doctor, OBGYN, reproductive health, ovarian cystAn ovarian teratoma with a long strand of visible hair.E.dronism - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

In an interview with Newsweek, Stuthers said that discovering the teratoma inside of her made her feel "gross."

"It messed me up for a while thinking about how I never knew that it was there. In a way, it made me feel gross. The photo of the tumor truly altered my brain chemistry," she said. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Teratomas, while admittedly a little freaky and frightening, are really no different than any other kind of tumor. It's their origin from germ cells which makes them capable of growing human tissue, teeth, hair, and eyeball-like structures.

But they're understandably hard to talk about. And so as a result, the general public doesn't understand teratomas very well. But Stuthers is working to change that with her follow-up videos on TikTok.

She also wants to encourage young women to advocate for themselves medically. Doctors dismissed her pain and discomfort for months before she finally went to the ER, and she's urging women to trust their gut and fight for their own bodies:

"I got lucky as we found it in time so nothing too extreme happened. But I can't help but think that if my doctors in Illinois would've listened, I would still have both ovaries. It is so important for women to express our pain and not allow doctors to invalidate us."

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women's health
Pets

Mama cat rushed her kitten with an eye infection into a hospital and 'asked for help'

That's some serious maternal instinct.

Gulf Today/Facebook

A family of kittens in western Turkey has won people's hearts with an emergency visit to a hospital. Not an animal hospital—a human hospital. And it wasn't a pet owner who brought them in, but the mama cat herself. According to Gulf Today, staff had previously left food and water for the stray orange tabby outside the Izmer, Turkey hospital, but that morning she kept meowing outside.

Finally, she fetched one of her kittens and carried it right into the hospital, clearly on a mission. She wasn't scared or shy as hospital personnel cleared the path for her. With her baby in her mouth, she trotted through the hallways, seemingly looking for someone to help. Medical personnel examined the kitten along with its siblings and consulted with a veterinary clinic.

As it turned out, the kittens had an eye infection. Mama kitty's maternal instincts are really something else. Just look at this sweetness caught on video:

According to the Daily Mail, one of the hospital workers told local media: "We were giving food and water to the mother cat living on the street with other people living in this area. However, we did not know that she gave birth to kittens.

"As we began to receive patients in the morning, she showed up with her kittens. She asked for help, meowing for a long time. We were shocked.

"Upon careful examination, we saw that the kittens were not able to open their eyes due to infection.

"We consulted with veterinarians and gave medicine as described. When the kittens opened their eyes a short time later, we were thrilled.

"Later, we sent the mother cat and kittens to Uzundere for further care. This is the first time something like this has happened to us. We were emotional and delighted to see that they recovered well."

This isn't the first time that a mama cat has made news for bringing her kittens into a hospital in Turkey, however. Last spring, a different cat brought her kitten into an emergency room at a hospital in Istanbul. Merve Özcan described the scene in Twitter posts that went viral at the time.

"Today we were in the hospital emergency, a cat rushed to the emergency with her baby she was carrying in her mouth," Özcan wrote. "Her baby is a little mischievous, her mother grabs it where she finds it."

Medics looked over the kitten for obvious signs of illness, while mama cat was given milk and food. Then they were sent to a vet.

"The Turks have long been known for their love and care for stray animals," Bored Panda reported, "with many leaving out food and water for them on the streets."

No wonder these cats felt so comfortable bringing their kittens into human hospitals for help.

While we can't know for certain what prompted these mama kitties to bring their babies to these medical professionals, it's clear that their maternal instinct to protect and keep their kittens healthy is strong. And the fact that they seem to trust the hospital personnel to take care of their babies says a lot about how humans have treated them. Good for these Turkish medical workers for setting an inspiring example of kindness to animals.


This article originally appeared four years ago.

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Wellness

ER doctor in Canada writes 'climate change' on patient's chart in an unprecedented diagnosis

Photo by kerry rawlinson on Unsplash

Climate change is causing record-breaking heat and intense wildfire seasons, worsening health issues.

As record-breaking heat and out-of-control wildfires raged in the beautiful Canadian province of British Columbia this past summer, people started arriving to the emergency room of Kootenay Lake Hospital with symptoms of heat illness.

Dr. Kyle Merritt, the head of the emergency department, told the Times Colonist that most of the doctors at the hospital had only seen such heat illness in medical school. Now they found themselves with a flood of it as the temperatures rose.

"We were having to figure out how do we cool someone in the emergency department," said Merritt. "People are running out to the Dollar Store to buy spray bottles."

A patient arrived who was struggling to breathe. The smoke from the wildfires in the area hadn't lifted for days, and the patient's asthma was being aggravated by it.

Merritt took the patient's chart and wrote two words he'd never written on a chart before: "climate change."

When asked why he did it, Merritt said, "If we're not looking at the underlying cause, and we're just treating the symptoms, we're just gonna keep falling further and further behind."

"It's me trying to just...process what I'm seeing," he said. "We're in the emergency department, we look after everybody, from the most privileged to the most vulnerable, from cradle to grave, we see everybody. And it's hard to see people, especially the most vulnerable people in our society, being affected. It's frustrating."

Merritt said a woman in her 70s who lived in a trailer with no air-conditioning had come into the ER. She was struggling to stay hydrated, and the heat was exacerbating her other health conditions, including diabetes and some heart failure. Patients like her, with multiple health problems and little money, will be the most affected by the climate crisis.

However, we're all seeing that there's no escaping its impact. Hundreds died during this summer's heat dome in western Canada and the northwestern United States. An entire Canadian village was wiped out by wildfire as temperatures reached a record 121 degrees this summer. We've been told for years that climate change would result in more extreme weather events, and here we are.

Merritt said he hoped seeing "climate change" on the patient's chart would prompt other doctors who see it one day to make the connection between their patients' health and climate change.

Extreme weather affects more than people's physical health. Merritt says he saw a number of patients already suffering from depression or anxiety have their symptoms worsen during the wildfire season. Wildfire smoke even triggered flashbacks in a patient who was coping with post-traumatic stress disorder from his time as a soldier.

The World Health Organization calls climate change "the single biggest health threat facing humanity" and health professionals worldwide are responding. Doctors and nurses in western Canada held a climate rally at the B.C. Legislature organized by Doctors for Planetary Health—West Coast on November 4. The healthcare workers are calling on lawmakers to act in the face of the growing ecological threat to health and demanding that the provincial government declare a climate and ecological emergency.

Writing "climate change" on a patient's chart may be unprecedented, but so are the times in which we live. If we are going to keep breaking records each year and keep seeing health-affecting extremes in temperature and weather events, we're going to have to do unprecedented things. Doctors and nurses are on the front lines, seeing those health impacts firsthand.

Perhaps we should listen to them.

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Democracy

Doctor's viral video about being asked 'do you plan on having children?' is an eye-opener

TikTok

Dr. Pamela Mehta goes viral for highlighting gender inequality in the workplace

"Do you plan on having children?" This is absolutely, without a doubt, a very inappropriate question to be asked during a job interview. One that in no way explores a person's work relevant skills, applicable experience or career goals. And it's definitely not a common conversation starter for male applicants. It is however a question that many women, particularly those in male-dominated fields, have to put up with, even now.

Meet orthopedic surgeon, mother and viral TikTok sensation Dr. Pamela Mehta. Mehta receives glowing reviews for her work, and is mother to three children. Yes, she is both—is it that hard to fathom? Apparently, for her former employers, it was.

Dr. Mehta recently posted a TikTok video—now racking up over 16 million views—sharing her own story of gender discrimination.

After spending nine years studying, training and preparing to become an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Mehta was finally able to pursue her dream job ... only to be asked a question she "knew was illegal." (And if you didn't know it was, now you do.)

This is certainly not a unique scenario. Roughly 75% of women have reported that they were asked about family life, marital status and children in interviews.



@dr.pamelamehta

My story in 48 seconds @wearfigs



Mehta knew being honest would have its unwarranted repercussions. She shared with BuzzFeed that, "I was frustrated because I knew I would be penalized for saying yes, yet I still wanted the job because it was a coveted position. I also knew the question was illegal, but that is just how it goes—a lot of questions are asked of women in the workplace that are not legal, and we just have to deal with it."

For Dr. Mehta, the grin-and-bare-it approach seemed to be the only strategy. To prove her worth, she "got there early, stayed late, never passed any work to anyone else," and even returned back to work only six weeks after the birth of her first child. That's only half the standard recommended time. And that's all unpaid in the United States, which is a completely different societal failing.

Despite her efforts, Mehta's workplace continued to prove unwelcoming and unsupportive. And after her second pregnancy, the company became toxic to the point of needing legal intervention. "They aggressively started 'pushing me out.' I had to get a lawyer," she says in her TikTok video. "They tried to ruin any future career I would have as a successful surgeon."

Comments from other working moms began pouring in to show solidarity and speak out about their own similar experiences.

One person shared: "Lost my medical career Thursday because I was pushed out."

Another replied: "Not sure how we as women are supposed to birth children but … not birth children. Someone has to do it. Why are jobs so cruel?"

Even a male commenter wrote: "I am a surgical tech and good friend with our only female ortho surgeon. They treat her like they're doing her a favor by having her. It's ridiculous."

Mehta's determination paid off, as she is now the owner of her own successful surgical practice, and has "three happy, healthy children." Add to that, social media star. Mehta has around 163K followers on her Instagram and TikTok, collectively. As "TikTok's 1st Female Orthopaedic Surgeon," Dr. Mehta uses her platform to encourage other women that a healthy work-life balance is possible, and to advocate for better maternity leave policies. Her message is simple: "Ladies, don't let anyone take your dreams and spirit away!"

Women should not have to feel powerless or alone while trying to attain both a family and a career. And as the Orthopaedic Surgeon Mama says in her BuzzFeed interview, "There will come a day when women are treated equally and respectfully in the workplace, and we will not stop until we have that equality."

That fight for equality might not be over. But victories like Mehta's are worth noting, because they move us all toward progress.

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