Spiros Kotsialos, 39, had visited various doctors five times over the space of 18 months with all the key symptoms of throat cancer. However, he was told it was likely “just a sinus infection.”
“At our age, no one expects us to have cancer,” Mr Kotsialos, 39, told Daily Mail Australia.
“I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life.”
It wasn’t until he spat up blood and was rushed to hospital that a nurse spotted a slight irregularity in his throat, referring him to a specialist.
It was there that he learned he had a 4cm by 3cm cancerous tumour near his tonsils.
He required immediate surgery and was left with an 80 per cent chance of survival.
Throughout his treatment, Mr Kotsialos kept a blog to update his family and friends of his condition, including details of the surgery.
Post-operation, he spent 19 days in a hospital bed, unable to eat, tending to a severely swollen tongue and in far too much pain to sleep more than two hours a night.
However, after more than two weeks in hospital, he was able to return home, only to begin seven weeks of radiation treatment.
However, Daily Mail reports that as of December, he is free of treatment and hopes to have cleared out the toxic cancer.
It will be at least five years of check-ups before he will know if the cancer is gone for good but the doctors are confident he is cancer-free now.
Since returning home, Mr Kotsialos has been working on his website Generation X Today, which he hopes will provide a forum for people in his demographic to talk through a range of age-specific issues and throwbacks.
