Posted tagged ‘Tree growing in lung’

“Wood” You Believe?

April 21, 2009

tree-in-lung–It’s an old wives’ tale not to eat a peach pit or certain seeds, lest they grow into a tree inside you.  –Well, a five-centimeter fir tree was reportedly found in the lung of a Russian man who complained that he had a strong pain in his chest and was coughing up blood.  This is seldom good…

Doctors X-rayed the chest of the 28-year-old male patient, and found a tumor in one of his lungs.  Suspecting cancer, they decided to perform a biopsy, but when they cut the tissue reportedly found a small fir tree growing, which was removed.  The needles were poking capillaries, causing the bleeding.  It was felt that the patient had inhaled a small bud which started to grow inside the lung, a portion of which has been preserved with the little fir tree for further study.

Western experts doubt the entire story, feeling that an object that large couldn’t have been inhaled without being coughed out or lodging in the patient’s airway.  Or perhaps, the patient was taking too seriously the admonition to “…carry a little bit of Xmas around with him all year ’round…”   😉