A young woman who begged for medical help for months has revealed how doctors repeatedly dismissed her symptoms, only for her to later discover she had stage four cancer.

Twenty two year old Nothando Nhliziyo, from Leicester, first developed severe back pain in November 2024. As a hairstylist, she assumed long hours on her feet were to blame. But when the pain became “chronic and debilitating”, she visited her GP four times, only to be told to take paracetamol, ibuprofen and do basic stretches.

Nothando said the repeated dismissal made her doubt her own suffering. “If they don’t take it seriously, then why should I take it seriously,” she told Sun Health. But the pain escalated dramatically. She could no longer sleep, turn over in bed or even stand upright. She described crawling to the bathroom, suffering muscle spasms and hearing crunching sounds from her back.

She visited A and E multiple times but was turned away, with staff even asking her: “Why would you come to A and E for back pain?” Out of desperation, she waited twelve hours during one visit and eventually lied that she had fallen down the stairs just to be taken seriously.

Only then did doctors agree to scan her, and what they found was devastating. Cancerous lesions were discovered across her spine, pelvis and left adrenal gland. Nothando was admitted immediately and spent the entire month of January undergoing tests, surrounded by fear and unanswered questions.

Doctors initially withheld the exact diagnosis until they could confirm the cause. When Nothando and her family were finally told she had cancer of unknown primary, she said her world collapsed. “I wanted the ground to swallow me up. My parents burst into tears. The room was full of wailing.”

Her sisters Samantha and Fenny even slept beside her on a mattress in hospital because she was so distressed during the months of uncertainty. After further biopsies, scans and surgery to remove her adrenal gland, Nothando finally received a clear diagnosis in April 2025.

She was told she had stage four angiosarcoma, a cancer so rare that only around sixty four cases are recorded each year in England. Making up just 0.05 per cent of all cancers, angiosarcoma begins in the bones or soft tissues, including muscles, blood vessels, tendons and fatty tissue. It can appear anywhere in the body and is notoriously aggressive.

Nothando is now undergoing treatment while processing both the emotional and physical trauma of her long fight to be believed. Her story has reignited public concern about the dismissal of young patients, especially women and people of colour, whose symptoms are often minimised during early GP consultations

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