Bump in the neck: from a cold to cancer, doctors make the wrong diagnosis

A young woman in the UK has claimed to have been diagnosed with cancer a month following doctors attributed the cause of her lump on her neck to a cold, according to the Daily Mail.

Last March, 28-year-old Paris Wells noticed she had a lump on her neck. As soon as she saw her, she called her doctor, but the only appointment she got was for five days later, and by phone.

To avoid waiting five days, Paris went the next day to an emergency clinic affiliated with Princess Royal University Hospital, Kent. The doctors that Mme Wells met told her that her bump “didn’t appear to be cancerous.” According to them, the bump had been caused by a cold which the young woman had suffered a week earlier.

But, over the weeks, the bump got bigger and harder. The young woman then asked her aunt, a radiologist working at the same hospital, if she might do a double magnetic resonance check in April.

After she had tests, the results confirmed that her lump was not related to a cold, but rather stage two Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a rare cancer that develops in the lymphatic system and spreads throughout the body.

“My mother came with me to my appointment. When the results came in, I was asked if I knew what Hodgkin lymphoma was. I answered them yes. The doctors told me that I suffered from that”, she said in an interview with the Daily Mail.

Three-quarters of people with this cancer survive at least ten years. The young woman will begin chemotherapy in the coming months.

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