A Scottish dad was forced to spend a month isolated in an Edinburgh hospital after this 'sore throat' turned out to be cancer.
Graham Stirling's life turned upside down after what he believed was a something he caught while gardening was really an aggressive form of Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Only 60 years old at the time, in May 2020 the dad-of-two woke in the night with the uncomfortable throat, which he put down to inhaling an anti-fungal spray he used on his fence earlier.
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However, as symptoms began to worsen, it was a month later that Graham was told the now lump on his neck was cancer.
Grateful he attended a GP when he did, the managing consultant has now urged others to get any unusual symptoms checked as soon as possible.
Graeme told the Daily Record: "I didn't think anything about my health to be honest because I was still fine and healthy, but I woke up with a sore throat. I'd been spraying the fence with anti fungal stuff so I thought I'd damaged my tonsils.
"But it developed into a lump on the right hand side of my neck."
He added: "When the lump developed I went to the doctors immediately, I'd been kind of thinking about it because my tonsils felt like they were inflamed a bit.
"So it was really when the lump appeared I went to the GP. If I had left it I don't even know if I'd still be here."
Due to the pandemic, Graeme had to wait until he could get treatment. It was at this time he developed lumps in his groin area.
He said: "I had to wait sometime before I could wait for the biopsy. I had to isolate before I could go into hospital and get Covid tested and all the rest of it."
He added: "There was lumps in my groin that followed on and so it was probably about a month later in June that I got the results of the biopsy, which confirmed it was Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma."
The cancer Graeme was diagnosed with is known as mantel cells lymphoma - a form of Non-Hodgkin's which causes white blood cells to become abnormal and build up in your lymph nodes.
He endured intensive treatment for his condition, which he says physically impacted him more than the cancer itself.
"It was pretty intensive, it started off with three months of chemotherapy then a couple of months after that a stem cell transplant," he said.
"The only time I started to feel ill through this whole thing was halfway through my chemotherapy. You could be living life normally and you don't know anything about it because you don't feel ill.
"There's always talks of silent killers and it's definitely a silent cancer."
"The treatment had a 50-60 per cent chance of success and even the success would probably mean its not gone away because there's a 30-40 per cent chance it could return.
"It could be controlled but it couldn't be cured, which is a message that you have to take a bit of time to mull over in your head."
Graeme was forced to stay at Edinburgh's Western General in isolation for almost a month while undergoing treatment during the pandemic.
He said: "I was in the same room in the Western General in Edinburgh for 27 days. I wasn't allowed to leave the room at all.
"That was horrible. Your body goes through a period of not being able to do anything and then only when your blood starts to normalise can you get out of hospital."
Following his transplant, Graeme would undergo further treatment for a year until he was given the all clear in June 2021.
He continues to raise awareness around lymphoma and has raised over two thousand pounds £2,000 for cancer charity Lymphoma Action by running a 10km race just four months after recovery.
Back in June, Graeme celebrated his first year as a survivor, but feels things could have been a lot different had he not taken quick action. He is now urging people to not ignore any signs or suspicions.
"Get it seen as quickly possible. I was quite fortunate I actually got it seen reasonably quickly but I could have left it for longer," he said.
"Even people who've got friends or family that might be showing symptoms but not doing anything about it, encourage them - march them to the doctors.
"The worst thing they'll tell you is you've got cancer, but the best thing that can happen is you haven't. You probably don't have it but it's always better to know."
Graeme's story is a stark reminder to never ignore when you detect something might be off with your health. While lymphoma's symptoms may not be as aggressive as other cancers, regularly keeping on top of medical check ups can help to spot the condition.
Charlotte Bloodworth, Advanced Clinical Practitioner at the University Hospital of Wales and spokesperson for Lymphoma Action said: "The numbers of people with lymphoma are increasing every year, more people are being diagnosed and more people are living with lymphoma as treatments become more and more effective.
"Lymphoma is less well known than other cancers so it is important to raise awareness of it so that more people can be treated earlier, often the later the presentation the more difficult it can be to treat.
"Sometimes people will present with a neck or axilla lump that has not gone away but feel well, others may have a lymphoma mass that cannot be felt and is discovered when having a routine scan for another reason."
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