Teratoma
Morbid Curiosity 1
This article contains medical details and images. Please proceed with caution if you are squeamish or sensitive to this subject matter. I am not a doctor, just a writer with an interest in the bizarre. Do not use this article to self-diagnose or seek medical advice.
It was around 3 a.m. I couldn’t sleep, which isn’t unusual for me, but it wasn’t the anxiety I’d grown accustomed to that was keeping me awake. For some reason, I just could not stop myself from wondering — what were the world’s most bizarre medical conditions? Perhaps I’d been reading too many Ask Reddit threads, but nonetheless, I was now awake, and my thirst for knowledge had to be saited.
A quick google search introduced me to the topic of today’s article: the teratoma. A tumor, more common in women than men, that is unusual for the fact that it can contain fully developed tissue and organs. That’s right, a teratoma can develop hair, teeth, muscle, and bones. I wouldn’t recommend googling one if you’ve just eaten your dinner.
Luckily, I hadn’t just eaten, nor did I have the sense to realise that googling such a thing would produce some rather graphic results. The sickening photos ranged from tumours laden with teeth and long, dark hairs poking from the flesh, to images of the poor souls who have suffered a teratoma the size of a football beneath their skin. It looked like something out of a horror movie — a monster spawn, not yet fully developed, but deadly once allowed to grow. Luckily, most teratoma’s are benign. Still, I can imagine you’d want to remove it from your body as soon as possible, regardless. I know I would.
With a very limited scientific background I attempted to make sense of what it was that caused a teratoma to develop. From what I can gather, they seem to develop in germ cells, which are pluripotent, meaning they are able to differentiate into any type of specialised cell that can be found within the body. Though teratoma’s can be found anywhere they are most often located within the tailbone, ovaries and testicles, which could explain why they develop human-like qualities such as teeth and hair. There have also been a few reports of teratoma’s with ocular structures — some of them quite literally have eyes, and I don’t know about you, but that is what terrifies me the most.
The writer in me immediately began to think of how to incorporate this into a story. The tale of a teratoma left to grow, becoming a sentient monster soured by its own existence, seeking vengenance on those who allowed it to be born. It wouldn’t surprise me if a pre-medical diagnosis classified it as a demonic entity. Lesser things have been gifted such a title, even with todays advancements in science and medicine. Humans just really enjoy blaming Satan for things.
If nothing else it really enlightened me to just how strange the human body can be. I’m forever thankful that we live in an age where such problems can be solved by safely removing the entity from our bodies.
Thank you for reading!
If you’d like to stay up to date with this series then please do consider subscribing to me.
All future entries to the series will be added to the list Morbid Curiosity, so keep an eye on that if you’d like to read more!
You can also support me as an author by using my referral link to subscribe to Medium! A portion of your subscription will go directly towards me, and is always a huge help.
