I thought I had a cold... but after I coughed up a blood clot doctors found ... trends now
Natalie Sue thought little of the cough that had been bugging her for two months. It wasn't uncommon for irritating symptoms to linger after a cold.
Until that is, she produced something that looked like it belonged in a slasher movie.
Ms Sue, an esthetician from St Petersburg, Florida, "said on her podcast she would never forget the day she first coughed up a thumb-sized blood clot: It was Friday the 13th in May 2022.
The next day, the mother-of-one drove herself to the emergency room.
Subsequent tests would reveal the family's worst nightmare: she had four cancerous tumors ravaging her lungs.
But puzzlingly, it wasn't lung cancer. In fact, the disease could be traced back to a potentially deadly mole, which she had removed five years prior.
Natalie Sue said on her podcast her 'heart dropped' when the doctor diagnosed her with stage 4 melanoma
The esthetician and beauty spa owner said she fought her cancer battle for her son and husband (pictured left)
Ms Sue underwent multiple rounds of immunotherapy, was hospitalized for possible liver failure and endured six months of high doses of steroids
In 2017, she visited the dermatologist about a suspicious mole on her neck, which was subsequently found to be a melanoma - the most serious type of skin cancer that affects 100,600 Americans per year.
Further tests showed the disease had not spread to elsewhere in the body and, after the mole was removed, she was given the all clear.
Natalie moved on with her life, giving birth to her son and expanding her business without giving it much thought.
But now, the disease was back - and with a vengeance.
She said she will never forget the look on the face of the radiologist who took the scans of her lungs. She immediately knew something was wrong.
A subsequent biopsy revealed the disease had reached stage four, and doctors said her odds of surviving over five years were around 30 percent.
Ms Sue said: 'My heart dropped. The first thing I say to my doctor is "Am I going to die?" and he said "I don't know."
'My whole world had just come crashing down.'
When she called her family to tell them the news, they said to cancel an upcoming trip to Mexico - which was intended as the 'ultimate' family vacation.
But she was determined to go - afraid the trip could be her last one.
Ms Sue said: 'I thought, we're going to Mexico. I'm not going to regret not going on this ultimate vacation that we had planned for for over a year now.
'We're going to have the best vacation ever and I'm going to enjoy this vacation like it's my last because I don't know what is to come and I don't know what's going to happen in my future.'
In 2017, Ms Sue underwent surgery to remove lymph nodes from her neck and test them for cancer after a dermatologist found a suspicious mole on her body
In May 2022, Ms Sue went to the emergency room after she repeatedly coughed up blood clots
