A man in Colorado has reportedly been given intense amounts of chemotherapy, as well as painkillers for the past five years. Doctors diagnosed him with a rare form of cancer, which he recently discovered never actually existed.

James Salaz began his living nightmare five years ago, after experiencing sharp pains underneath his armpit. He rushed to the hospital, where he was told that he has Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis. He was told that this is a rare form of cancer that causes cells to build up throughout the body, and in turn, damage tissues, and then lead to death eventually.

Doctors told him that he was the only one in all of Colorado that had it. In order to deal with the pain caused by the chemotherapy, he took massive amounts of pain killers, hoping that his life would be saved.

After seeing that his health wasn’t improving, he returned to his main doctor to see what was happening, only to learn that the doctor had left the hospital without notifying his patients.

As it turns out however, this was the best possible thing that could have happened to James, as he went to look for a new doctor. This new doctor is the one that broke it to him, that he in fact never had cancer.

It was found that James has vasculitis, and that if it would have been treated five years ago when it first began, it would have been fine by now.

He now has to deal with the after effects of too many years of chemotherapy that was never needed. The doctors that misdiagnosed him have refused to comment.