A US college student has revealed how what he believed to be back pain from working out turned out to be 58 cancerous tumours that had spread all over his body.
When gym-lover Rob, 21, experienced a twinge in his back in February 2024 he assumed he'd simply overdone it while lifting weights and didn't think much of it.
After all, achy muscles is all part and parcel of a workout.
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"About an hour after leaving the gym my back started hurting really bad," he reflected during an interview with The Patient Story. "I assumed it was weight-lifting related — an injury from my back."
However, for the Delaware native, the pain began to get progressively worse, suggesting the cause may be something more sinister than a pulled or sore muscle.
Rob initially sought support from health facilities on his college campus — only to be given pain relief to help with his symptoms.
As the weeks passed Rob began to notice that his appetite had vanished. It would get to the point where Rob was vomiting 'blood and bile' before he was given a CT scan and blood tests.
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It was here that Rob would discover he'd developed testicular cancer after a doctor queried about pain or swelling in the region.
"One of the doctors had walked in and asked if I had ever noticed anything funky going on with my testicles," he explained, adding that he'd noticed that one had been more 'firm' than the other for 'a good couple of years'.
According to the NHS, initial symptoms of testicular cancer include swelling, pain, enlargement or a lump in one of the testicles as well as firmness in the area.
Subsequent scans would determine that Rob's cancer was the cause of the pain in his back as the tumours had spread to various parts of his body, with around 58 counted in total.
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The diagnosis left Rob completely 'shocked', with the college student saying the his treatment process had been a complete 'rollercoaster' for him.
He would then undergo an intensive treatment plan which involved chemotherapy as well as an 'complicated' surgery to remove one of his testicles and lymph nodes in the abdominal region.
Recalling the harder parts of undergoing extensive treatment, Rob revealed that he's found himself frustrated about not being able to exercise during chemotherapy and feeling self-conscious about losing all of his hair.
"I think that was probably one of the more challenging things for me," Rob said of the hair loss, which included losing his eyebrows and eyelashes.
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"I felt awkward and like everybody was going to be staring at me," he added. "So that was definitely a huge mental battle."
Thankfully, the chemotherapy and surgeries were able to remove all traces of cancer from Rob's body, meaning that he is now in remission.
"That was a really good moment," he said of the news. "It's very rewarding to go through an entire battle like that then see these moments of progress."
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact Macmillan’s Cancer Support Line on 0808 808 00 00, 8am–8pm seven days a week.
Brenna Cooper