Man, 26, who called GP 200 times told cancer symptoms were 'caused by cats' before diagnosis

A well-known podcaster and comedian has revealed how doctors prescribed him an inhaler while a 16cm cancerous tumour was growing in his chest.

Aidan Rafferty, who is one half of the popular Radio Rufus podcast with Rufus Rice, shared the news of his primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma diagnosis on Instagram earlier this week, with thousands sharing their support online.

As the Irishman's chemotherapy treatment begins, he has recounted the hellish journey that saw him eventually get an official diagnosis, which included being prescribed an inhaler and being told he was allergic to his cats over a horror eight-month period where his symptoms only got worse.

Aidan began struggling with migraines, severe chest pain and a chronic cough in December 2025, but struggled to get an appointment with his GP and was reassured that because of his age, it was unlikely to be anything serious.

This is sadly a worrying trend among young people whose symptoms are often brushed aside, and for Aidan it took him and his family as many as 200 calls to the GP before he was finally able to secure himself an appointment.

However, things didn't improve there as he was given a number of bizarre explanations for his symptoms, including that he was allergic to the cats he had been living with for the past two years.

Speaking to LADbible, he suggested that he was struggling with 'chest and back pain' at first, something which 'only got worse' when he was lying or sitting down.

He added: "I started to then have regular shortness of breath alongside the chest pain, making breathing more difficult and small tasks were taking the wind out of my sails more than usual, even small things like using the stairs, something that should be no bother to people my age.

"I tried to get appointments sorted for weeks before having any joy. Myself, my girlfriend and sometimes even my ma would all be calling as soon as the doctors opened in the morning and most times there would have been 150 - 200 phone calls made between us before getting an answer and oftentimes by the time you got through all the appointments would have already been gone.

"As soon as I finally got an appointment I told them of how long the symptoms had been going on for and how serious they had gotten, to the point where it was affecting my day to day life and I was missing work over it.

"They initially sent me to physio, telling me it was muscular pain, I trusted the doctor and booked an appointment but the physio couldn't believe I was sent there as I wasn't fit to do even the most basic of exercises, she asked me more about my symptoms and issues I was having than my doctor, which made me really question the care I was getting at my GP."

Unsurprisingly, the array of inhalers, antihistamines and nasal drops did little to ease Aidan's symptoms and it wasn't until he was forced to call an on-call doctor in the middle of the night that he was able to make some progress, as he was finally taken for an X-ray and a blood test.

Just a couple of days after those were taken, his GP rang him to explain the severity of the situation, explaining that the infection markers in his blood were 'alarmingly high' and that they had discovered a mass on his chest in the X-ray. He was told to go straight to A&E for an emergency CT scan.

Aidan said: "The 'mass' they found was actually a 16cm tumour in my chest and in the coming days/weeks I was diagnosed with cancer, (Primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma). They also found a blood clot in my neck that was caused by the tumour.

"It took five GP appointments, an appointment at the out of hours doctor, two trips to A&E and three phone calls with the doctor on call just to finally get the bloods and chest X-ray done that led to this diagnosis.

"From the first appointment they were made aware that the symptoms had been going on from December 2025, yet there were still 226 days which is basically 8 months between my first symptom and the diagnosis.

"I got my medical records, and I had been to the doctors with 22 different symptoms over this period and I was still consistently told that 'we aren't concerned about anything serious due to your age'.

"It's incredibly frustrating knowing what I know now. Being told I was allergic to cats, when in reality I had a 16cm tumour in my chest and a very aggressive form of cancer, it's almost hilarious just how off the ball they were."

According to Macmillan Cancer Support, Primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma, develops when B-cells - a type of white blood cell that are supposed to fight infection - become abnormal.

These cells then 'build up in the lymph nodes behind the breastbone and between the lungs'.

After a month in hospital, where Aidan suffered 'the worst pain of his life' after one of his lungs partially collapsed and was filled with fluid from a biopsy, he was finally able to get started with chemotherapy.

Although he was delighted to be able to return home, his spell in hospital was undoubtedly one of the worst of his life as he 'lost all independence'.

He said: "I lost all independence which was something that really affected me mentally, being pushed around in a wheelchair by my younger brother and my girlfriend was something I never expected to happen when I first went in for those checkups.

"The care I received from the doctors and nurses during my stay at the hospital was incredible, they couldn't have done enough to support myself and my family and it made things so much easier.

"It was a complete shock to the system hearing that diagnosis, it's not what you expect to hear at my age, I don't think it properly sunk in until after I did my first treatment and to be honest it still doesn't feel real.

"It's just incredibly frustrating because had my symptoms been taken seriously initially I could have got it so much sooner and potentially had a large chunk of my treatment done already.

"The reality is that had I not caught it when I did and started the chemo I might not even be here, which is why I think things like this need to be taken more seriously in young people."

Chemotherapy will of course be a battle for Aidan, as he admits he threw up for six hours in his first session, but he is staying positive after returning home and is even documenting his journey in a typically comedic fashion, via an online series he's dubbed: Finding Chemo.