Manchester student, 21, put leg pains down to gym workouts, then saw shock diagnosis on NHS app

"I couldn’t really process it straight away"08:19, 01 Sep 2026A Manchester student put his leg pain down to his gym workouts for three years before he was diagnosed with a rare cancer.‌Cian Douglas frequently worked out at the gym and put his aches and pains down to exercise. The 21-year-old visited doctors twice, who thought he was suffering from possible nerve damage.‌Years later after a number of scans and tests, he was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma – a rare soft tissue cancer that develops from an abnormal gene swap between chromosomes. Cian said he received the shock diagnosis on the NHS app while in Starbucks with his mum Louise.‌Click here to get the biggest stories straight to your inbox in our Daily Newsletter“It was a complete shock,” Cian told NeedToKnow. "It instantly sent so