A stage 4 cancer survivor who was misdiagnosed for around 18 months says he was “days from death”.

Charlie Taylor, from Sittingbourne, suffered symptoms when he was 15 but was told it was anaemia.

Charlie, now 23, said: “I had always been a bit chubby for my height but then I started losing loads of weight.

“I put it down to doing lots of football and boxing, but I dropped to about 30kg.

“I also had lots of bruises and dizzy spells and it was hard to concentrate at school, but the GPs I saw said it was just anaemia and gave me iron tablets. I was back and forth to my surgery all the time.”

Charlie also suffered extreme fatigue and found himself falling asleep during the day.

He went back to his surgery again when things worsened and was told to head straight to Medway Maritime Hospital.

Doctors found a large tumour in Charlie’s windpipe and chest which had spread to his liver, kidneys and spleen.

“At that point without treatment, I was days from death,” he said.

After being taken to St George’s Hospital in London for more tests, he was admitted to intensive care and started chemotherapy the next day.

However, Charlie didn’t find out he had cancer until five days later as doctors feared he was too weak to take the news.

It was after a biopsy, that he only had a 50/50 chance of surviving, when he was finally told that he had stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The 15-year-old’s physical fitness from boxing helped him through the treatment he had to endure.

Given the delay in diagnosis, it is suspected that he won the European Championship in Sweden at age 14 while the cancer was growing.

Charlie said: “I was young and had a strong mindset, so I took the news on the chin. I wasn’t going to let it beat me.

“The first month I was in and out of intensive care, I was so weak from being bedbound and so weak for so long that I had to learn to walk again.

“After a month I was allowed home but a few days later, due to the treatment and medication, I collapsed when my dad was supporting me to go to the toilet.

“I remember falling as I got to the toilet, hitting my head on the side of the bath and a couple minutes later I woke up in my dad’s arms hearing him say, ‘Charlie, I love you please don’t leave me’. All of a sudden I responded, and my eyes rolled back to normal.

“I was rushed to my local [hospital] where I required multiple resuscitation attempts to keep me alive. I was transferred to Evelina Hospital in London and put in a medically induced coma.

“There were a lot of worries that I’d never wake up but five days later I opened my eyes.”

After two months in hospital, followed by six months of chemotherapy, Charlie finished treatment in September 2016.

However, his symptoms returned in 2019 and he was devastated to be diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome – another type of cancer.

Further treatment included a stem cell transplant to save his life.

Charlie has since completed a two-year apprenticeship in groundworks and is now working for a civil engineering company.

He is still living with health complications but is determined to help others by sharing his story and raising awareness of cancer in young people.

“When I was 15, I didn’t have a clue about the signs and symptoms of cancer, to be honest,” he explained.

“When you’re young you’re not expecting it and can just brush off the symptoms. The very last thing I thought – that my family thought – was that I had cancer.

“People think that cancer doesn’t really affect young people but two other people at my school were diagnosed with cancer within a year of it happening to me. It’s not as rare as you think.”

He added: “Whatever you’re worried about get it checked out.

“Check any worries at all – any bruising, lumps, anything – just get it done.

“Don’t feel bad like you’re wasting the GP’s time or exaggerating because in this day and age, everything should be checked.

“If your GP isn’t listening to you and you’re getting sicker get a second opinion. They are so overrun at the moment that I think they can miss things and it’s important to get referred for tests as soon as you can.”