'My itchy skin turned out to be something utterly harrowing'

A young woman whose itchy skin turned out to be a rare form of cancer has urged others to never ignore their symptoms.

Asia Sharif says alarm bells first started to ring back in January when she noticed she had swollen glands in her neck.

The 26-year-old then began experiencing itchy skin a few months later – the irritation being so bad she couldn’t sleep or “live a normal life”.

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Asia, who lives in Deansgate, decided to visit her GP and was later told she needed to have a needle biopsy, a procedure to obtain cells for laboratory testing.

But the waiting list was long, and by the time her appointment came around in the summer, Asia’s lymph nodes were so swollen the medic couldn’t insert a needle.

While she waited to have surgery to remove them instead, Asia conducted her own research. She Googled her symptoms and discovered Hodgkin lymphoma, an uncommon cancer that develops in the lymphatic system. That was when she knew.

“They suggested I was young and healthy and it was probably something else,” the NatWest software engineer told the Manchester Evening News. “But it was sad for me because I already knew. I knew I had lymphoma. I had done loads of research.”

While waiting to be seen by a specialist, Asia booked a private appointment to see a head and neck doctor through her employee benefit scheme.

She was referred to see a haematologist, a medic who specialises in blood, who believed she had Hodgkin lymphoma following an MRI scan.

Though she needed to have further tests, the