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For 11 long months, Sumbul Ari faced incessant itching, extreme fatigue, and intense night sweats. But each and every time she visited the GP’s surgery, she was told there was nothing wrong.
It started with the scratching, and the itchy sensation steadily became so intense that she’d sit there, day and night, in pain. It was April 2025.
The 26-year-old, who lives in Cairns in Queensland, Australia, says: ‘I’d be scratching myself with sharp objects until I bled.’
Next came the fluctuations in her body temperature, which again, she initially brushed off. After she thought her air-conditioning was broken, she even moved rooms, but still, nothing changed.
‘I’d wake up to blood on my sheets from scratching so much in my sleep. My feet were the worst, but it was all over my body,’ she says.
As time went on, a new collection of symptoms popped up: she lost her energy, and then her appetite went, too. Infections would come back again and again, and she had an unabating cough.
Sumbul says that, time and time again, her concerns were dismissed by medical professionals.
‘He told me to moisturise’
The first time she went to her doctor, specifically for the itching, she was simply told to adjust her skin care routine.
The event content creator shares: ‘He told me to moisturise because we live in a hot, humid climate. He said it was just dry skin.’
When she went back a second time, a different doctor treated her for a yeast infection. Then, when the itching persisted, she was diagnosed with scabies. Next, it was supposedly eczema.
‘I knew deep down it wasn’t a skin issue, it felt systemic,’ she says.
‘I did multiple stool and blood tests, [and] everything came back normal, except I was borderline anaemic. And I was dismissed again.’
In the depths of her desperation, she turned to alternative treatments, paying for a parasite cleanse and visiting a naturopath. And while she says the herbal treatment momentarily eased her symptoms ever so slightly, the relief was only temporary.
She says: ‘The itching dropped from a 10 out of 10 to a 2, for about three weeks. Then it came back even worse.’
Finally, another doctor suggested to Sumbul that she visit a skin specialist, and at this point, she ‘gave up on the medical system.’
The moment everything changed
But a watershed moment came when she discovered a lump on her neck.
‘I googled “lump on neck”, and lymphoma came up. I read the symptoms, and I just thought, “Oh my gosh, I think I have cancer,”‘ Sumbul says.
The next day, she rushed to the doctor. Bursting into tears, she pleaded with them to take her seriously.
Examining her, this time, medical professionals found multiple swollen lymph nodes and referred her for an urgent ultrasound.
Within a few short hours, her life would change forever. Once the scan results came through, showing abnormal and enlarged lymph nodes, she was sent straight to the emergency department.
Here, doctors found lymph nodes on her chest, neck, and spleen, and less than a week later, she underwent more tests: a biopsy, a PET scan, and then, finally, a heart scan.
Then, on March 17, 2026, she was diagnosed with Stage 2-3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma, almost a year after her symptoms first started.
‘I didn’t have to itch myself to death anymore’
Her initial reaction wasn’t fear: instead, relief that she finally had the answers she’d been searching for.
‘I didn’t have to itch myself to death anymore,’ she says.
But amid the reassurance, anger started to bubble to the surface. For months, she felt she’d been dismissed by doctors. Now, she describes being ‘unheard’ as the very ‘worst feeling.’
Since she started chemotherapy, her symptoms have improved dramatically. After her first treatment, the itching completely stopped, and she got a full night’s rest for the first time in months.
Looking to the future, she knows navigating her diagnosis won’t be easy. But amid all the emotions, she feels hopeful.
She concludes: ‘Knowing I’m on the right path to becoming a normal functioning human again makes me very happy.
‘I want to complete a full Ironman before I’m 30. This is just a minor setback for a major comeback.
‘Life is too short to sweat the small stuff. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, so just take it one day at a time.’
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