A chef, who was planning his wedding, was told his symptoms — like passing blood — were just wedding stress, as doctors insisted he was “too young” for cancer.
In May 2024, Ashley Robinson, now 35, was preparing to marry fiancée Jasmin when he started experiencing symptoms.
“I thought it was stress related, because it had come on rapidly while we were getting stuff ready for the wedding,” said the chef, who hails from Dacorum in eastern England, according to The Daily Mail. “We were planning on a ‘princess wedding’ but we were working very, very hard for it and I was working a minimum of 60 hours per week.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
“It got really bad and I passed the most insane amount of blood,” Robinson said, sharing that his doctor told him to go to the emergency room immediately. ‘When I saw the doctor I mentioned to him that my great nan had died of colon cancer but he said there was no chance and that I was too young.”
As the American Cancer Society says, colorectal cancer is more common as you age — but there has been a steady rise in rates of colorectal cancer among young people.
Doctors insisted that Robinson was too young for cancer, he says: “I was being told by every health professional that I definitely didn’t have cancer. They were saying “you’re fine, don’t worry, go and get married’ so I took their word for it.”
Instead, he says they told him he had hemorrhoids, and his symptoms would pass in a week.
But in July after the wedding, Robinson quickly lost an incredible amount of weight — approximately 28 lbs. — prompting another visit to the doctor. His now-wife, Jasmin, “stormed in” and demanded they give her husband a colonoscopy.
“That’s when they found a tumor the size of an orange in my colon,” Robinson told the outlet. “I was dreading getting the results back. I was told I had stage four colon cancer, which had spread to my liver. It was the worst news possible.”
“It absolutely crushed my wife. Aside from it happening to her, it was the worst possible news I ever could have had,” said Robinson, who immediately began immunotherapy to treat the cancer.
The tumor has since shrunk 90 percent with treatment. “My oncologist was stunned,” he said. However, if he had gotten a colonoscopy when he first sought medical care in May, “then they might have been able to give me a treatment before it had spread to my liver.”
“I was 34 at the time so I know when something’s not right,” he said. “You know your own body.”
Read the full article here
