“I Was Told It Was a Fracture” — Woman With Tumor on Finger Says Misdiagnosis Led to Amputation

A doctor's misdiagnosis of a woman's fracture ended up costing her her finger, she says.

In a horrifying and difficult-to-watch time-lapse TikTok, Natalie Garcia (@princessnatixo_) documented the progression of a benign tumor's growth on one of her fingers.

Natalie's video begins with her showing off the middle finger on her right hand. It appears swollen. She says that the issue with her finger was misdiagnosed: "My finger when I was told it was just a 'fracture,'" she writes in the text overlay of her clip."

"My finger before surgery," she writes, showing off her hand that appears to be swollen and shiny near the mid-section of her middle finger.

"My finger one month after surgery," she writes, showing that the bump on the finger has grown considerably. It appears as if something is attempting to grow out of her skin.

"My finger two months after surgery," she writes in another overlay — her middle finger on her right hand is massive now. There is clearly something wrong with her finger. The skin near the growing mass is of a darker complexion from the rest of her skin, and it looks like some type of fluid could be lurking beneath the surface of the upper skin layer.

The next image of her finger looks like something out of a science fiction movie; it's gut-wrenching to watch the progression of her finger's health get worse and worse following the surgery she received on her hand: "My finger three months after surgery."

She turns her hand around to reveal the growing mass on the finger, showing off how it appears from all angles. The video then transitions to her in a hospital bed, showing off her hand one more time: "Surgery day again!" she writes as the mass on her finger appears to have grown even larger.

However, it seems that the attempt she made at undergoing the surgery was ultimately unsuccessful: "My finger after failed surgery," she wrote in a text overlay of the video. The finger looks more turgid than it has throughout the rest of the clip.

It's in this next part of the TikTok where Natalie reveals that there's a tumor in her finger and that she's undergoing chemotherapy in order to treat it.

"My finger before starting chemotherapy to shrink the tumor," she writes as she hovers her hand above a pamphlet dedicated to providing information for Turalio — which is a treatment for giant cell tumors.

She went on to show the damage the tumor wrought on her finger – she presents a gnarled and crooked middle finger that was pushed out of place from the pressure caused by the tumor.

Natalie wrote in an overlay: "My finger three months after chemo getting dislocated because of the tumor."

She shows the gnarled digit on camera, and while some of the swelling seems to have gone down, the tumor unfortunately already did its damage to Natalie's body.

The next portion of her video she writes, "My finger right before the amputation," indicating that the finger couldn't be saved at this point.

The end of the video shows her hand — the middle finger gone: "MY HAND NOW," she writes followed by a rock-on hand emoji and a shimmer.

In the comments section of her video, Natalie details what exactly happened with her treatment. According to the TikToker, her first surgeon not only misdiagnosed her issue, but kept telling her that her healing process was doing well.

The problem was, however, that the tumor kept attacking her bone, making it impossible for her to save her finger by the time she advocated for herself and got assistance from a second surgeon, who is the one who performed the amputation.

"Let me just say I was misdiagnosed with a fracture for two months until they saw my bone was deteriorating and referred me to a hand specialist who said it was a tumor," she explained in the comments. "But with every tumor removal surgery, the finger just kept getting worse because the tumor kept growing back and destroying the bone. So while on chemo to shrink the tumor it started dislocating ..."

However, the initial surgeon didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with her hand: "But he kept saying my fingers looked good and fine from December 2023 till March [2024] until I had to finally speak up for myself and advocate for him to check it and that’s when I got a second opinion ..."

Unfortunately, because she trusted the professional opinion of the first surgeon, she lost out on a chance to save her finger: "But It was too late; my finger couldn’t be saved so my new surgeon did an amputation."