How a woman's Facebook photo of her fingernail led to cancer diagnosis
A photo a woman shared on her Facebook page to ask friends what they thought of her fingernail has led to an alarming cancer diagnosis.
Jean Williams Taylor, from the UK, shared the photograph to social media last Tuesday, asking if anyone had seen a nail curled on an angle over her finger like hers.
The grandmother said she was urged to go to the doctor, which she initially thought was “a tad extreme”.
But she booked an appointment and saw a doctor, who immediately rushed her in for blood tests and a chest X-ray.
“Two days later I got a phone call to go for a CT scan, two days later a PET scan and more blood tests,” Ms Taylor wrote on Facebook.
She then had a breathing test on her lungs, a heart scan, an MRI and a lung biopsy.
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“After a gruelling 2 weeks, yesterday I got my results…….Cancer in both my lungs !!!!” she wrote.
“When your nails curve its often linked to heart and lung disease and its official term is ” clubbing” I had no idea… Did You?”
Mr Taylor said she had shared the post on social media to try and spread awareness about some of the early signs of lung cancer.
Nail clubbing occurs when the tips of the fingers enlarge and the nails curve. Sometimes it can be caused by low oxygen in the blood, but is also a symptom of various types of lung disease.
