35-year-old Ryan Greenan died from throat cancer only three months after his doctor told him that his symptoms were only caused by anxiety.
The father-of-two went to see his doctor back in September after struggling to drink or eat.
His family said that his GP told him his symptoms were “probably caused by reflux” and that at 35, the doctor said he was “too young for it to be cancer.”
However, Greenan’s symptoms did not disappear and caused him to lose weight. His throat also became so painful that he couldn’t drink water properly.
Greenan, who recently got engaged with Natasha Robertson, eventually collapsed at work and was taken to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.
Unfortunately, it had already spread to his liver and lungs.
He passed away only three weeks later, three months after his first appointment with his GP.
His 33-year-old sister said that Ryan had taken the diagnosis as gospel “because the general advice was that oesophageal cancer only really affected older people.”
She is now calling for doctors to do more thorough tests in younger patients.
“When Ryan first went to the doctor, he was told it was anxiety and that he was too young for it to be cancer because he was only 35,” she said.
“One day he collapsed and he was in hospital. We were told it was just to see what the symptoms were and the next day, we were being told it was cancer and there was nothing they could do because it had spread.”
Esophageal cancer is the cancer of the food pipe. The most common symptoms include difficulty swallowing, persistent cough, heartburn or indigestion, pain behind your breastbone or throat, weight loss, and food coming back up.
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