For the last 28 years, Florida resident Blanca Riveron, 62, suffered through a debilitating and persistent cough.

The Cuban-born mother simply suffered through it for nearly three decades until about 5 months ago when she began coughing up blood. Worried, her daughter took Riveron to see a doctor.

After tests and x-rays, doctors found what they believed to be a cancerous lump in the mother’s lung and told her she would need surgery and possibly other procedures.

Another daughter, Melody, who remains in Cuba, was being told about Riveron’s condition, when she reminded her mother that she once accidentally inhaled the pit of a fruit called a nispero in 1984.

Thinking there was no way the fruit pit could have ended up in her lung and remained there for so long, Riveron continued medical treatment under the assumption she had cancer.

A few weeks after that conversation with her daughter, Riveron was in the car on her way home from a second endoscopy. She began coughing violently and eventually something flew out of her mouth. What had come out was in fact the very fruit pit she had inhaled all those years ago.

Asked how she feels now, Riveron says that while her breathing is still not perfect – likely due to damage done by the pit – her cough is almost completely gone.

To ensure she does not actually have cancer, Riveron is returning to the doctor so they can check her lungs.

Despite doctors’ worries however, she believed the pit was the problem all along and says now that it’s out, her life has “changed completely”.