A UK woman who developed a cough was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer — despite never having smoked.
Jade Fardon, 33, couldn’t shift her cough, but doctors reassured her it would go away on its own.
It did, but it came back again and again over the years, and she returned to the general practioner several times to have her chest checked.
She began to notice other things too — a hoarse voice, some nausea, increasing fatigue and night sweats.
By April 2022 she compiled a list of all her symptoms for the GP — and this time was referred for a CT scan which showed extensive cancer across both her lungs.
Jade, who was then 29, had never smoked, and lived a healthy active life.
She didn’t need chemotherapy but was given a daily cancer drug to take which shrank the tumors and prevented them from growing.
Almost two years on, metastases were found in her brain during a routine MRI scan and she needed gamma knife therapy — a precise, intensive form of radiation — to attack the lesions, which initially appeared to have been successful.
But she learned one lesion had continued to progress since the treatment, when she suffered a brain bleed later that year — and she needed brain surgery to remove the lesion.
She has been given new long-term medication to keep her condition stable and is regularly monitored — and is raising awareness of lung cancer in young people.
Jade, a business change manager from Watford, England, said: “I had a cough but everyone thought it was Covid, and because I’m relatively young, when it went away, I didn’t suspect anything.
“When I went to the doctor with my symptoms two years later, I did suspect it might be cancer, but not lung cancer.
“When I got the results of my CT scan, it was already stage four and it was very scary, I was shocked and in a bit of denial.
“As treatment started, for a long time, I didn’t want to hear the word ‘cancer’ at all.
“When I went on the first drug, it shrunk the tumors. So when I found out they found metastases in my brain, I had to go through all those scary feelings again.
“But this condition has been incurable since the very start when I was diagnosed, so this is my new life.
“Sometimes I pause and feel sad, but anyone could think that. Now I want to challenge assumptions of living with stage four cancer.”
Jade first suffered with a cough in 2020, which she visited her GP about but it was put down to COVID several times.
She developed a hoarse voice over the course of 2021 and continued visiting her GP, but once again was reassured she was okay.
By April 2022 she had noticed some other symptoms — nausea, fatigue and swollen lymph nodes.
This time she was referred for a CT scan at Watford General Hospital and was diagnosed with lung cancer, which was present in both lungs.
She said: “The original tumor at that point was about 2.5 inches, but there were tumors in both lungs.
“You never hear about young people who have never smoked getting lung cancer.”
The official diagnosis was ALK-positive lung cancer — meaning it is characterized by a mutation in the ALK gene.
She didn’t need chemotherapy — but was given a daily oral cancer drug to target the specific mutation, which worked successfully — allowing her to go back to work and live a relatively normal life.
That was until December 2023 when a check-up scan revealed 17 lesions in her brain.
She said: “I had been at home getting ready to go out for the evening volunteering as a Brownie leader when I got the call.”
Jade underwent gamma knife therapy — a targeted radiation therapy — in January 2024, with the aim of “zapping” the lesions away.
Initially it appeared to be successful, but by December 2024, Jade fell unwell with headaches, nausea and sickness — and doctors discovered one lesion of the 17 had progressed, despite the gamma knife therapy, causing a brain bleed.
Just before Christmas she underwent brain surgery to remove that lesion at National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, which was successful.
But by early April 2025, she once again began feeling unwell, suffering with headaches and nausea she put down to migraines and took time off work sick.
On her way to volunteer at Brownies, she had a seizure — and phoned 999 and was rushed to A&E.
She was extremely unwell for two weeks after scans revealed progression of another lesion in her brain.
She was taken off her original oral medication and given a new one to take, which has since helped slow progression.
After one further gamma knife treatment earlier this year, Jade is now being monitored with MRI and CT scans every four months, and has opted to move her care to the private sector.
She is able to work four days a week alongside two-monthly oncologist check-ups and and her scans.
Jade is determined that she won’t let her stage four diagnosis hold her back.
She is raising awareness and funds for ALK Positive UK, a charity for ALK-positive lung cancer patients, by completing Chris Hoy’s charity cycle, Tour De 4, in September.
Jade said: “I’m passionate about challenging assumptions of living with stage four incurable cancer.
“I didn’t used to like telling people I have stage four cancer, now I like to show people what I’m doing.
“If you have the determination, passion and the right perspective and have the right people around you, you can do anything.”
