Dad, 35, dies of cancer months after doctor ‘tells him he’s too young to have the disease and is just suffering anxiety’
A DAD died from throat cancer just three months after being told by his GP that his symptoms were being caused by anxiety.
Father-of-two Ryan Greenan, 35, went to see his GP back in September after struggling to eat or drink.
His family say that the doctor told him that his issues were "probably caused by reflux", and that at 35, he was "too young for it to be cancer".
But Ryan's symptoms didn't go away and resulted in him losing two stone in just two weeks.
His throat became so sore that he was even struggling to "swallow water".
Eventually, Ryan, who had recently gotten engaged to fiance Natasha Robertson, collapsed at work and was rushed to hospital - where he was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer.
By the time it was caught, it had already spread to his lungs and liver.
Ryan, from Edinburg, passed away just three weeks later - three months after his first doctors' appointment.
His sister Kerry, 33, said that Ryan had taken the diagnosis as gospel "because the general advice was that oesophageal cancer only really affected older people".
She's now calling for doctors to do more thorough tests for the illness in younger patients.
She said: “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.
Symptoms of oesophageal cancer
The most common symptoms of oesophageal cancer include:
- difficulty swallowing
- persistent indigestion or heartburn
- weight loss
- pain in your throat or behind your breastbone
- a cough that won't go away
- food coming back up
"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.”
Ryan's weight plummetted from 12 to ten stone in a fortnight.
Oesophageal cancer is the cancer of the food pipe. It's quite a long organ and cancer had developed in any part of it.
It's the 13th most common cancer in adults and it's more common in men than women.
The advice Ryan was given was correct in that the disease is much more common in older people.
says that in Britain, around eight in every ten new cases occur in people aged 60 and over. It's super rare for people under 40 to have it -but that obviously doesn't mean that it never happens.
A number of things can put you at risk from it, including smoking, boozing, being overweight or obese, and not eating enough fruit and veg.
If you catch it before it spreads, you have a 40 per cent chance of surviving more than three years. That drops down to 21 per cent if it has spread to nearby lymph nodes.
Most people with advanced oesophageal cancer live between three and 12 months after their cancer is diagnosed.
So this is one of the most deadly cancers out there.
A JustGiving page was set up just before he passed away to help with the cost of his funeral, with any extra cash going towards his daughters, aged 11 and 8.
His heartbroken family say that they've been devastated by the way Ryan's illness was diagnosed.
They're hoping his story will promote anyone experiencing similar symptoms to seek and push for medical investigations immediately.
Had the illness been picked up earlier, Kerry claims, Ryan could have had an operation and chemo.
After three months, however, the cancer had spread too far to be operable.
MORE ON CANCER
"If it had been picked up earlier, they could have operated, they could have given him chemotherapy, but after three months it had spread - there was nothing else they could do at that point," said Kerry.
"I'm so angry. If they had caught it earlier, my big brother would still be here today."
Kerry said she was "absolutely destroyed", and said that anyone who has concerns about their health shouldn't "take it lightly - go and get yourself checked out and if you are not happy with what you have been told, go and get a second opinion".
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