Woman who linked anxiety symptoms to grief stunned after ChatGPT search led her to cancer diagnosis
A woman who initially thought she was suffering from anxiety-induced grief was left shocked when ChatGPT diagnosed her with blood cancer.
The 27-year-old strategist, named Marly Garnreiter, revealed that she initially ignored the symptoms due to their timing.
In January 2024, she lost her 58-year-old father Victor to colon cancer, and so after coming down with regular night sweats and skin itchiness, Garnreiter believed that she was just suffering from anxiety caused from the grief of losing her dad.
After conducting some blood tests which came back fine, doctors ended up supporting her grief hypothesis, however, her symptoms would soon progress into weight loss, constant lethargy and an awful pressure in her chest.
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This prompted her to seek help from the pioneering AI tool.
Incredibly, Chat GPT suggested she could have blood cancer, a diagnosis which she was initially 'skeptical' about.
However, in January, she started to feel that 'something was wrong' after having a 'constant pain' in her chest, which led her to go to the doctors, where they went on to discover a mass on her left lung.
She was subsequently referred to a pulmonologist in February 2025, who confirmed the diagnosis of Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is a type of blood cancer.
According to the NHS, symptoms of Hodgkin's lymphoma include night sweats, unintentional weight loss, a high temperature or fever, persistent cough and itchy skin.
"I started to lose a lot of weight when [her dad had] just passed away," she recalled.
"I kept eating normal amounts of food but I thought it must be the anxiety making me lose a lot of weight. I'd accepted you lose weight with grief.
"I was having night sweats and itchy skin. Again I thought it was anxiety. I felt I was processing the grief well. I thought it must be something.
"In May I sent a took a video to my friends - I had asked ChatGPT and it said I had blood cancer. I ignored it. We were all sceptical and told to only consult real doctors."
Once the cancer was revealed to be genuine, she 'felt a lot of anger' over her family needing to endure a second cancer crisis in as many years.
"I felt like everything was unfair." she said. "I didn't want my family to go through this one more time."
Fortunately, Garnreiter was offered the chance to undergo an egg retrieval ahead of her chemotherapy treatment - four to six rounds are planned in total - which commenced at the beginning of March.
She went on to reflect: "I'm feeling confident for the future. It's really important to listen to our bodies. Sometimes we tend to lose our connection with our inner self.
"It's important to be in tune."
Dan Seddon