When Kayley Boda first started vaping at 15, she never imagined it would end with a cancer diagnosis. Now 22, the Manchester-based retail assistant said she only tried cigarettes a few times as a teen and believed vaping was mostly harmless at the time.
She enjoyed the different flavors but found reusable vapes expensive, so she switched to disposable ones. For months, she went through about one 600 puff vape a week, never thinking it was excessive or dangerous, especially since she felt fine at first.
Last November, she noticed a rash spread across her body. Doctors initially said it could be shingles, chicken pox, or scabies, and she was treated for all three. Nothing worked, and the itching became so intense that she said: “It got the point where I was cutting myself from scratching so hard.”
By January, she began coughing up brown, grainy mucus. She compared it to brown sugar and said: “At first I thought it was normal, because I vaped a lot, so I brushed it off.” Even after visiting her GP multiple times, she was repeatedly told it was just a chest infection.
Things changed when the mucus turned into blood. By March, she was coughing up large amounts, which finally led doctors to order further tests. She recalled: “They did an X-Ray and found a shadow on my lung,” adding that she was told it was likely not cancer because of her age.
Minutes later, that reassurance disappeared. At just 21, she was told she had lung cancer, a moment she described as unreal. She said she had always believed something like that could never happen to her and admitted she was naive before the diagnosis.
Over the next four months, she underwent seven biopsies to examine the shadow on her lung. Doctors initially confirmed stage one cancer, but surgery in September revealed cancer in six lymph nodes, suddenly upgrading her diagnosis to stage three.
After waking from surgery, she struggled to breathe and dealt with severe pain. She said she still cannot sleep on the side of the operation and needs help moving around her home. Even simple tasks like stairs became impossible on her own.
The mental impact was just as heavy. She said she no longer goes out with friends because she feels embarrassed by how limited her mobility is. She also described recurring nightmares about waking up unable to breathe and learning to walk again.
Chemotherapy followed, but her first round went badly. She said: “I couldn’t lift my head up, I was throwing up blood, I was urinating blood.” She lost weight rapidly and said the experience left her terrified to continue treatment.
Despite everything, Boda is now focused on warning others. She believes vaping caused her cancer, explaining that symptoms appeared soon after switching to disposable vapes and that there is no history of lung cancer in her family.
She has stopped vaping for three months and convinced her partner and mother to quit as well. Urging others to do the same, she said: “Stay off the vapes, because they will catch up with you.”
