A professional boxer has died at just 25 after claiming doctors ‘dismissed’ her cancer symptoms for months.

Georgia O’Connor from Durham, UK, was a decorated Team GB amateur boxer at junior level, going on to win gold at the Commonwealth Youth Games in 2017.

The rising star revealed just in January this year that she had been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, and cancer that was tragically terminal.

Revealing her diagnosis on Instagram, she wrote at the time: “There’s really no easy way to say this, but I have cancer.

The young woman has died (Nigel Roddis/Getty Images)

“Now that’s out the way, it’s time to expose the absolute incompetent RATS that have allowed this to happen.”

O’Connor stated she was in ‘constant pain’ for 17 weeks and made several trips to hospital and doctor’s appointments.

She said she knew ‘something was seriously wrong’ and that she was already considered a cancer-risk due to her colitis and PSC (primary sclerosing cholangitis).

“But not one doctor f***ing listened to me,” she continued. “Not one doctor took me seriously. Not one doctor did the scans or blood tests I begged for whilst crying on the floor in agony.”

O’Connor revealed in January she had been diagnosed with cancer (Instagram/georgiaoconnor_1)

“Instead, they dismissed me. They gaslit me, told me it was nothing, made me feel like I was overreacting. They refused to scan me. They refused to investigate. They REFUSED to listen. One even told me that it’s ‘all in my head.'”

The youngster made the heartbreaking admission that not only had her cancer spread but doctors found potentially fatal blood clots in her lungs.

She continued to rant about the shortcomings of the NHS, adding: “They could have done something before it got to this stage.”

“They can say it’s terminal all they want. They can tell me I’m going to die. But after taking 17, SEVENTEEN weeks to even figure out what was wrong with me, why the f*** should I believe them?”

The boxing star in March this year (Jordan Peck/Getty Images)

Celebrating her 25th birthday a month later, O’Connor revealed in a space of a few months she had suffered a miscarriage and was diagnosed with incurable cancer.

“I have what people consider the worst disease known to man, but I’m still able to smile, laugh and be myself,” she penned.

O’Connor then tied the knot with her partner, Adriano, just two weeks ago, writing in her final post on Instagram: “09.05.2025. The day I married the love of my life.”

Tributes have since been flooding in for the star, including from her former promoter, Ben Shalom’s Boxxer, who wrote: “We are heartbroken by the passing of Georgia O’Connor. A true warrior inside and outside the ring, the boxing community has lost a talented, courageous and determined young woman far too soon,” reports BBC.

“Georgia was loved, respected and admired by her friends here at Boxxer. Our thoughts are with her loved ones at this difficult time.”

Tributes have been flooding in (Nigel Roddis/Getty Images)

World champion Ellie Scotney, who was a buddy of O’Connor for a decade, described her as the ‘most beautiful human.’

“I was so blessed with not just a friend for 10 years, but a sister for life,” Scotney said.

“Even when life was on a timer, you never let anything dim that light of yours. A smile that never ever fades, and a heart that will forever live on in so many ways.

“There was nothing you couldn’t do, the world at your very feet no matter what room you entered.”

England Boxing also said O’Connor was a ‘gifted boxer’ and ‘beloved member of the amateur boxing community.’

If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the American Cancer Society on 1-800-227-2345 or via their live chat feature, available 24/7 every day of the year.

A doctor who dismissed his cancer symptoms for months, sadly passed away just three months after his diagnosis.

Thelma Ainsworth, 50, said her husband Jonathan started complaining of stomach pain in 2019, but did not seek medical advice straight away.

But sadly, Jonathan’s symptoms worsened and in October that year, he was diagnosed with bile duct cancer. He passed away just a few weeks later.

Jonathan was diagnosed with bile duct cancer in 2019 (PA Real Life)

Thelma, who is a lawyer, author and former RAF legal officer, from London, hopes that telling her husband’s story could encourage others to get checked, if they begin to notice anything unusual.

“Jonathan, even though he was a doctor, he didn’t get checked immediately, he waited until it was too late,” Thelma told PA Real Life.

After Jonathan began experiencing stomach pain, he also noticed some weight loss, which led to him being referred for a scan.

While waiting for a referral, Jonathan tested his own blood and ended up discovering he had bile duct cancer.

“He was a doctor, so he decided to do his own bloods, and then one day he came back home and said it wasn’t right,” Thelma explained.

“So, he went off to St Mary’s Hospital and they said that he had cancer – and then, three weeks later, he was gone.

“It turned out to be bile duct cancer, which is very rare, and it had spread everywhere.”

Thelma, Jonathan and their two children, Dominic and Richard (PA Real Life)

Bile duct cancer doesn’t always have symptoms, and they can sometimes be difficult to spot.

However, symptoms can include skin or eyes turning yellow – which can be less obvious on brown or black skin – itchy skin; darker pee or paler poo than usual; loss of appetite; weight loss; feeling generally unwell; feeling tired and a high fever.

“It was more advanced than we could possibly imagine… we were always five steps behind what was going on,” Thelma said.

“Go get yourself checked out.”

Thelma has penned a book about grief and loss (PA Real Life)

Thelma, who is mum to Dominic, 12, and Richard, eight, has since gone on to channel her grief into I Am A Wolf Tonight, the first book in her Surviving Badly series, about cancer loss and grief.

“Since the diagnosis and for many months, maybe years afterwards, I blamed myself, that it was somehow my fault because of our marriage difficulties, because I didn’t get him to check himself out,” Thelma said, explaining that she began writing out ‘raw’ notes which became the inspiration for the book.

“I realised that it was all playing out like a drama and it would actually do well to write it as a proper memoir, so I started to write it in that vein,” she explained.

“It was this blockage inside me that I felt I needed to release.

“At some point you will reach a stage where you’re able to process that grief, but it will take years, and I’m not unusual in that.

“I hope that my book is helpful for anyone who’s been in that circumstance where they’ve had to go out of their way to reveal their inner animal in order to survive.

“As in Jonathan’s case, once you know that there’s something wrong, get yourself checked out as soon as possible.”

A mom has shared how she felt like she was ‘made out to be crazy’ after her cancer symptoms were dismissed by doctors before her diagnosis.

Heather Barry had just given birth to her third child when she began to notice things that made her worry.

Months into welcoming her little baby, she explained that symptoms presented themselves which gave her pause, but nobody would listen.

Because she had not long given birth, her concerns were swept to the side and blamed on her post-partum body, but she knew something was going on.

However, she was determined to get down to the bottom of what was happening to her, and this led to a terrible discovery after months of doctor’s visits: Heather was battling cancer.

She told Today: “In an odd way, it was a relief because I knew I wasn’t crazy, and I felt like I was being made out to be crazy.”

Heather Barry was facing common symptoms that doctors believed were part of her post-partum condition (Getty Stock Image)

The mom added: “I was shocked, absolutely 110%. I will never forget that moment.”

According to Heather, she was advised to eat a high-fiber diet, to walk more and to take stool softeners and laxatives for her persistent constipation and pain troubles.

But that didn’t help.

Eventually, she began to lose weight, totalling to 30 pounds after going to the restroom became so painful that she started eating less to prevent bowel movements.

But after she kept pushing, a colonoscopy finally revealed her stage 3 rectal cancer.

However, this was a shock to Dr. Ted Hong, director of gastrointestinal radiation oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who treated her.

This is because she had absolutely no risk factors for colorectal cancer.

“She’s very, very healthy and very active. Quite thin. She did not have any risk factors that we would have thought of for colorectal cancer,” Hong told the outlet.

“There is still no obvious answer as to why we’re seeing this dramatic increase in young onset colorectal cancer.”

For Heather, her rectal bleeding, pain and constipation woes had been solved, but it was a long road ahead.

It began with ‘bum pressure,’ hemorrhoids and rectal bleeding during her pregnancy, which then stopped after she gave birth in May 2023.

Heather was diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer (Getty Stock Image)

While many women have blood in their stool postpartum, this can mask symptoms of a tumor, Hong said.

“The pregnancy may have been a little bit of a distractor in that seeing blood in the stool is so common after pregnancy that it wasn’t sort of realized that there was something atypical about it,” he added.

Heather noted that she was bleeding around 90 percent of the time when she would go to the bathroom, with ‘very little’ stool or ‘none’ coming out.

She said: “It felt like there was something in there, blocking.”

At the time, when she was asking for tests to be conducted, a colorectal surgeon told her that she had hemorrhoids, but told her as per Heather: “You’re fine. Hemorrhoids don’t lead to colorectal cancer, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

“If you Google symptoms of colorectal cancer, I had every single thing, but now it’s three doctors who have told me I’m OK,” she said. “I was like, ‘Alright, I guess I’m just crazy.’”

As it turned out, Heather could not have her colonoscopy because there was a 2-inch tumor almost completely obstructing her rectum.

“None of this is normal,” she says. “Nobody should go through this.”

She was then sent for treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital and fitted with a colostomy bag so that she could eat, and pass movements, before her chemotherapy and radiation to her pelvis.

Then, in October 2024, she underwent surgery to remove her rectum and part of her colon.

Since then, however, the healthy parts of her colon have been reconnected, allowing normal bowel movements.

Now she feels ‘stronger than I have ever been in my life’.

If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the American Cancer Society on 1-800-227-2345 or via their live chat feature, available 24/7 every day of the year.

A dad who died from an aggressive brain tumour had been suffering from a bizarre symptom before he was diagnosed.

Barry Fair, 44, was diagnosed with a grade 3 astrocytoma in 2022, after suffering from symptoms that were initially brushed off as ‘stress‘.

However, when Barry experienced a seizure at home, he was rushed to hospital where he was diagnosed.

The dad, from Scotland in the UK, had visited his GP when he began experiencing symptoms, which included smelling burning rubber, strange tastes and experiencing déjà vu, but was told it could be stress.

Barry sadly passed away in April 2024 (SWNS)

According to The Brain Tumour Charity, variations in taste and smell can be in some cases, linked to brain tumours, depending on where the tumour is located.

Following his diagnosis, Barry was scheduled for urgent surgery, undergoing a craniotomy at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Scotland, to remove the mass which was located in his frontal lobe.

Despite the operation running smoothly, the cancer had already spread to his corpus callosum – an area of the brain that couldn’t be operated on.

Barry and wife, Leanna (SWNS)

Barry underwent years of treatment, but sadly passed away in April 2024, with his wife, Leanne by his side.

Leanne, a mobile emergency carer, said: “He faced years of chemo and radiotherapy and horrible side effects with such courage.

“He still made us laugh, still played his music, still had time for everyone else.

“We went on family trips, to concerts, and even just little walks with our dog, Spud – every moment suddenly meant so much.

“Even when he lost movement in his hand, he insisted on going out to play pool with friends.

“That was just who he was – brave, loyal, and always thinking of others.

“Watching him fade over those last few months broke me, but I also felt lucky to be there beside him, giving him the love and care he so deserved.”

Barry suffered from a bizarre symptom prior to diagnosis (SWNS)

After Barry’s diagnosis, he was initially told he could have up to 10 years to live, but sadly, the tumour was resistant to treatment and Barry’s health declined in 2024.

After suffering from a tonic clonic seizure – also known as a grand mal seizure – Barry returned home from hospital under Leanne’s full-time care.

Doctors predicted he had just 48 hours left, but Barry once again defied expectations and spent another seven weeks at home, surrounded by his family.

Leanne has recently completed the Glasgow Kiltwalk to raise money and awareness for Brain Tumour Research.

“When I saw the date for the Kiltwalk, I signed up straight away. It gave me a reason to keep going,” she said.

“Getting outside, training, and having a goal is helping me get through this grief. But more than anything, I did it for Barry.

“I want to continue raising money so one day, people with this cruel disease will have real hope. Barry deserved better, and so does every other person going through this. I’ll carry him with me every step of the way.”

You can visit Leanne’s fundraiser here.