A British teenager who was told he had nothing to worry by medics was diagnosed with a rare cancer just a few months later.
17-year-old Jack Constable went to the doctors after he noticed a lump on his back in 2023.
However, when he was seen by a nurse, he and his mom were told it was nothing to worry about and that it was likely a pulled muscle. As he wasn’t having any debilitating symptoms, he and his family thought nothing more of it.
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Jack’s mother, Katie, spoke of the pure shock at finding out her son was in fact suffering with a serious cancer.
She said: “Jack had no symptoms whatsoever…he’s six foot three, he was slim. He was a normal healthy lad. There weren’t any symptoms. ‘Then he said one day omg what is this lump I’ve got cancer.'
“We went to see a nurse practitioner. She lifted Jack’s shirt she didn’t even touch him or examine him and within two minutes we were out she said ‘oh it’s just a pulled muscle don’t do anything and if it doesn’t go down come back in eight weeks’. Then to be told he’s got cancer was just horrendous.”
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Eight weeks after being seen by the nurse, Jack’s tumor had grown to the size of a watermelon and could even be seen through his shirt.
His mother added that she doesn’t blame the nurse for failing to spot the developing cancer stating, ‘why would you think that lump was cancer? We certainly didn’t, it didn’t cross our minds.’
Trying to get help eight weeks later, a nurse immediately realized there was a bigger issue at play.
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Katie said: “Something didn’t feel right. In eight weeks, time I called and it was another nurse practitioner, who saw Jack, and as soon as she saw Jack said there’s no way that’s a pulled muscle.”
Jack was then diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, which is a rare type of cancer that begins as a growth of cells in the bones and the soft tissue around the bones.
Unfortunately, the teenager, now 18, has been told that his cancer is terminal. His family are now seeking life-extending treatment in the US.
His family has set up a GoFundMe in hopes of having the significant funds needed to get him more care to extend his life as well as ‘alternative’ medicine techniques.
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So far £15,685 ($19,629) has been raised following just under 300 donations.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the American Cancer Society on 1-800-227-2345 or via their live chat feature, available 24/7 every day of the year.
Gerrard Kaonga