A man who swallowed a pea found a pea plant growing in his lung - and he originally thought it was a 'cancer' cell.
Retired teacher Ron Sveden had been short of breath for months and was taken to hospital in May.
Doctors warned him they had found a grainy spot on an X-ray and he braced himself for a diagnosis of cancer. But the 75-year-old said: ‘I was told I had a pea seed in my lung that had split and had sprouted.’
Doctors who took a sample from his lung believe Mr Sveden ate a pea that ‘went down the wrong way’ before sprouting to 12mm (half-an-inch) in size.
He said he never felt anything growing in his chest and repeated coughing fits had failed to dislodge the legume.
Mr Sveden, from Brewster, Massachusetts, in the US, had been suffering from emphysema when his health took a turn for the worse. His left lung had collapsed but his doctors were baffled by his symptoms as they could not find any evidence of cancer.
Mr Sveden added: ‘Whether this would have gone full-term and I’d be working for the Jolly Green Giant, I don’t know.’
He is now recovering from surgery.
Neighbours have sent seeds and canned peas as get-well presents (or, perhaps, just to pea him off).
