I Overlooked Three Symptoms, Including Itching – Diagnosed with Cancer in My 20s

A woman in her 20s has revealed how she ignored symptoms for a long time, assuming she was just tired and stressed, before she was diagnosed with devastating cancer.

Georgie Swallow says she ignored her itchy legs, night sweats and general feeling of exhaustion, assuming they were just par for the course, but finally went to her GP. She told Surrey Live: “I would itch until I broke the skin which would keep me up all night. I went to the doctor and they thought it could be stress, allergies or urticaria but no cream or lifestyle change would make it go.

“During this time I was losing weight, having night sweats, constantly exhausted and a never-ending stream of colds and flus but I just thought I was on the go too much and wearing myself out.

“Honestly, it took the doctor telling me ‘you have stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma’ for me to realise how serious it was. After being off work for about two weeks with a serious bout of flu I went into the office and whilst at my desk discovered a peach sized lump in the side of my neck. Even then I wasn’t too worried because I just never even contemplated there would be anything serious wrong with me, naively!”

Georgie said she was worried that she was “wasting everyone’s time” and assumed her symptoms were nothing serious. She added that the symptoms of lymphoma are deceptively minor. “This is why lymphoma is diagnosed so late because you can brush the symptoms off so easily as other things.”

Georgie went into early menopause and added that going through it so young was hard. “Physically, it was like being hit by a bus. Cancer can take quite a lot away from you but having my fertility taken before I’d had a chance to have children was difficult.

“The menopause at any age can be difficult but at 28 I didn’t have anyone my age to talk to about it. None of my friends understood what I was going through, and as supportive as they were, it’s hard to comfort and relate to something you don’t understand.”

Georgie, now 32, is keen to raise awareness for others who may be going through the same thing that there is help out there if you know where to look.

“There are 42 recognised symptoms of menopause and I think we all talk about the hot flushes and loss of periods but the most important one for me would be mental health. I have spoken to so many women who felt like they were having a nervous breakdown, myself included, because they didn’t realise what they were experiencing was menopause.

“Your mood changes and you can suffer with low moments and I think the minute you recognise what it is, the less stressful it becomes.”