Dad-of-two thought he'd just pulled a muscle... then doctors said there was nothing they could do to save him
12.11.2023 - 17:19
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
When Lee Young began experiencing back pain out of nowhere, he assumed he had just pulled a muscle while playing golf.
Deep Heat wouldn’t work and his discomfort was intensifying every day – but the worst was yet to come.
The dad-of-two later discovered two small lumps near his shoulder blade, prompting him to visit a doctor in September 2021.
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A nurse told him they were probably fatty lumps and he had nothing to be worried about. To be safe, she referred him for a non-urgent ultrasound six weeks later.
Lee, a car garage owner from Denton, was later phoned by a doctor who told him they had found something on the scan. He was referred to an orthopaedic surgeon who carried out further tests.
Lee, who was in agony by late December, was finally sent for a biopsy just before Christmas. In early January, his results were back.
The hospital said they wanted to discuss the findings over the phone – making Lee believe he was going to be given the all-clear.
But that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Lee had a rare type of cancer – and doctors didn’t know where in his body it had first started.
The biopsy revealed an 8.5cm-long tumour near his kidneys, leading to a diagnosis of cancer of unknown primary, known as CUP.
CUP is when a secondary cancer is located and diagnosed, which in this case was Lee’s tumour. But with CUP, even after tests are carried out, medics aren’t able to figure out where the cancer first started.
Because the primary cancer is unknown, CUP can be very difficult to treat as doctors don’t know where to