Doctors said my excruciating back pain was down to a slipped disc - but the ... trends now
A father's excruciating back pain that was dismissed as a slipped disc by doctors actually ended up being cancer.
David Windle, from Camberwell in south London, was at one point unable to move because doing so would leave him in agony.
Despite numerous trips to his GP, osteopath and physiotherapist in December 2021 and January, the 46-year-old was still in crippling pain.
Mr Windle assumed it was a nasty flare-up of a twinge that he suffered years earlier at the gym but was desperate for relief.
On two occasions before his eventual myeloma diagnosis, he was even sent to A&E. Medics there ruled he likely had a slipped disc – when soft tissue between bones in the spine pushes out — that was pressing on nerves.
David Windle, 46, who kept fit by going to the gym, running and cycling, dismissed his back pain for almost four years putting it down to a gym injury
Mr Windle's pain progressed to the point where he'd 'crawl across the floor from the bed and lie there'.
During the February 2022 half-term, he needed his mother to help look after his two children, Sylvie, 9 and Otis, 6.
Recalling the extent of his pain, Mr Windle, a deputy headteacher, told MailOnline: 'I was supposed to look after my kids.
'I had to call my mum and say I can't move, you need to come and look after kids.
'I would just get out of bed every day and crawl across the floor from the bed and lie there.'
The deputy headteacher, pictured with his wife Emma Smith, 49, was told his back pain could be a slipped disc
In February 2022 aged 44, Mr Windle was diagnosed with myeloma, a type of blood cancer that can affect your bones
When Mr Windle went back to work after half-term, he would 'find an empty office to lie in' just to help him get through the day. Eventually, he found himself working from home propped up by cushions.
His osteopath suggested getting an MRI scan, although he wasn't able to get one on the NHS.
Mr Windle, who paid to get one privately, said it 'revealed the disaster which was the next year and a half of my life'.
Scans revealed one of his vertebrae had disintegrated with no known cause – but he was told it could be a cancer.
He said: 'It was a terrible moment. I was sitting there and the world just disappeared around me.'
He rang his wife Emma, 49, and explained he needed to get to hospital urgently.
Once at A&E, doctors looked at Mr Windle's MRI scans and asked if he had been in a car crash or had any trauma. He said: 'They all looked a bit worried.'
He spent a fortnight in the hospital's spinal unit, undergoing several scans and blood tests.
Recalling the day he found out his diagnosis, Mr Windle said: 'I had decided to go for my daily walk from my bed on the hospital ward, so I’d struggled into the back brace I had to wear and set off for my circuit of the hospital.
'I was on the ninth floor, so I’d got
