Mountain Hiker, 26, Develops ‘Weird Cough’—Then Comes Shock Diagnosis

A keen mountain climber thought he was just feeling under the weather when he developed a strange cough last year. But when he started to cough up blood, that’s what changed his life forever.

In the summer of 2024, Bohdan Suprun became increasingly fatigued, but as he was just 26 years old and felt fine otherwise, he didn’t think much of it. He’d started hiking in the mountains in Switzerland, noting that his “lungs were performing well” throughout those challenges.

But by late August, Suprun, now 27, told Newsweek that he developed a “weird cough that wouldn’t go away” and a low-grade fever. The longer that continued, Suprun started to notice chest pains and severe night sweats that caused him to wake up completely drenched.

“I thought it was weird since I didn’t have any other typical flu-like symptoms. There was no running nose and not even a sore throat,” Suprun said.

Soon enough, he started to cough up blood, which felt “serious and disturbing.” Something was clearly wrong, and it wasn’t just a simple cough.

He scheduled a doctor’s appointment and went for a blood test to find out what could be causing his mystery illness. The results showed shockingly high levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a protein made by the liver. His CRP level wasn’t just slightly higher than normal, but “multiple times above the threshold.”

High CRP can be a sign of inflammation, possibly due to a serious infection or chronic disease. As a result, doctors believed that Suprun could have pneumonia, so they prescribed him antibiotics to fight it off.

“Initially, the doctor prescribed antibiotics for one week, but the symptoms were getting worse, so I scheduled another appointment,” Suprun said. “I thought it was strange because I regularly went up the mountain nearby. So randomly getting pneumonia was just weird.”

Deep down, Suprun knew it wasn’t just an infection, and he returned to the doctors to push for answers.

He was still coughing up blood and he lost around 22 pounds in just a matter of weeks, so he had an X-ray to get a better look at his chest. In that moment, Suprun recalls how his doctor’s face changed instantly, before he uttered the words: “We have very bad news for you.”

The X-ray showed a mass on his lung, so Suprun was given two possible scenarios: lung cancer, or tuberculosis.

“The probability of those outcomes was very low because I don’t smoke and I’m still young. So, they scheduled a CT with contrast for that same day, and the contrast revealed the lung tumor and multiple affected lymph nodes in the lungs,” Suprun continued.

“The tumor board suggested it was something infectious rather than cancerous, so they kept treating me with antibiotics for another month or so. I told them a few times that it didn’t help, and the symptoms didn’t improve.”

He just felt worse and worse as the days passed by. Once it was clear that the antibiotics weren’t working, he was taken for another CT scan.

To their horror, doctors saw that the tumor had grown aggressively. By then, it was 7×6 centimeters in size, and a biopsy was the only way to find out the real diagnosis.

In the end, it wasn’t pneumonia or tuberculosis—it was in fact Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The stage 4 cancer had spread outside Suprun’s lymphatic system and formed a tumor in his lung.

He said: “I felt both shocked and relieved. Shocked because of the fact of the diagnosis, and relieved because I finally knew what it was after two months.”

Treatment needed to begin straight away, and Suprun has since undergone six grueling cycles of chemotherapy over a span of three months.

Thankfully, the treatment appears to have worked, and recent scans have shown no trace of cancer. Although Suprun is still experiencing some lasting symptoms.

He told Newsweek: “I still have some pain in the area where the tumor was located, but it’s not too severe. My energy levels are not that high yet, and the worst is the polyneuropathy. The tips of my fingers are numb, and my toes are also numb.”

As he faces his road to recovery, Suprun has been sharing his experience on TikTok (@praesidens) to educate and inspire others. There were so many times that he felt uncertain about what was going on with his body, and times when he felt alone on this journey. Now he hopes to prevent others from feeling that way too.

He’s been amazed by the online response, with one post detailing “the cough that changed everything” going viral with over 388,400 views and 23,600 likes at the time of writing.

Being diagnosed with cancer at 26 was an intensely difficult challenge, but he’s so relieved to have pushed through and to raise awareness.

Looking back now, it amazes him to think of what he went through when the symptoms started. He often reflects and wishes it was just a case of the flu after all.

Suprun said: “I am happy to survive this, but there are so many other people affected by cancer. So many of life’s problems are not problems anymore when you are getting chemo in a hospital bed and fighting for your life. I posted on TikTok after I received the news about being in remission, and the response was very positive.”

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