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I have decided that 2016 is going to be my year, and it looks like April will be my month. Not only am I getting married to the love of my life, Lara, but I've also signed up to run the London Marathon!
Despite many people telling me I'm mad (doing the marathon that is, not for marrying Lara just to be clear!) 2016 marks a poignant reminder for me personally where I had to get through a very difficult period of my life. In 2009 I spent lots of time not feeling quite right, having problems with sleeping and generally feeling uncomfortable in myself. After moving down to the South-East from the North-West to start a new job things hadn't changed so I went to the doctors to see if they could offer some further explanation as to what was going on. After several rounds of tests I received the unfortunate diagnosis that my problems were being caused by Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The diagnosis isn't anything anyone wants to hear let alone for someone who had just moved 220 miles away from family to take up a fantastic new job opportunity.
I quickly decided that I didn't much fancy having Lymphoma so went straight in and started treatment in the November in a bid to get rid of it. Things were on the up, and I received the all-clear but completed through the cycle of treatment which ended in June 2010. I had a wonderful summer catching up with friends, and to make things better I met Lara, a lovely friendly girl who didn't live too far away and we just clicked. We had a great time together making each other laugh and generally just enjoying each others company. 
In October, things didn't start to feel right again and I felt my symptoms returning, and at this point I didn't know if it was a return of the Lymphoma, or phantom symptoms that were there just to make me feel uncomfortable. As part of my regular check-ups however, it was confirmed that the cancer had in fact returned. This wasn't like one of those good sequels that you were looking forward to like 'The Empire Strikes Back', but more like 'Sharknado 2', the first one was tragically bad and then it comes round again. 
My consultant referred me on to the Royal Marsden for further treatment and something called a bone marrow transplant, and the ground went from beneath me. The first time you hear those words, it scares you. What does it mean? Will I be able to live a normal life? What am I going to have to give up? Will I have to stop working? That sounds really painful - is it? The Royal Marsden, that's where really sick people go, why am I being referred there? (At this point I had only really thought of the treatment as a major inconvenience to getting on with normal life, complaining about southerners, drinking lots of tea and generally being northern). All the answers to these questions became clearer in the coming weeks and I was glad to have Lara, my family there to support me. My employers were also fantastically supportive and gave me all the time I needed to go through the treatment and to continue doing my job to the best of my ability.
Before I started the pre-treatment needed for the transplant it was confirmed that it would be an autologous bone marrow transplant. This essentially means that they use my own stem-cells to repopulate the bone marrow once they kill it off. Still a pretty heavy treatment but the survival rates are better than using donor stem cells I was told. Uh oh, talking about survival rates… that never sounds good. Anyway, April 2011 – the date set for the transplant procedure. I say procedure but it involved me being shut in a room for a few weeks, and I was allowed to bring my PlayStation – back to student days then (almost). Thankfully there was an exercise bike in the room to help keep me active as I wasn't allowed outside. A big shout out to my mum for keeping the distance up and therefore keeping the physiotherapist from deriding me too much!
I’m glad to say after the transplant went as expected and I was given permission to leave, I emerged into the daylight at the end of April almost running to get out of there and get some fresh air. It was still a long road to normality and after leaving, simple things like walking up the stairs to go the shower wore me out, and I was also advised that it wouldn’t be best to drink any alcohol while recovering (spoilsports). The next few months were spent just getting back to a normal routine and my work helped with this by making it as easy as possible integrate into a normal working day where I could.
By the end of the summer I was back into the full swing of things and Lara and I decided to move in together. She’d seen me at my worst and decided to stick around so I was thankful for that! Don’t worry, if you’ve made it this far then you’re not in for another twist. Since then everything has gone fantastically. I’ve had regular check-ups and glad to say had the all clear at every stage. It was difficult at stages because, as mentioned above, phantom symptoms used to creep up every so often. Usually this would be before a check-up making things particularly difficult when you’re sat in the waiting room. Anyway over the past few years I’ve spent some time trying to get back into fitness, not because I was in particularly good shape before but because I wasn’t going to let a little thing like Lymphoma get in the way of a normal healthy life.
So this brings me up to running the London Marathon. I’ve decided to run to mark 5 years since the transplant. It’s a significant event and I wanted this to tie in in the same year I’m marrying Lara. I want to give something back and this is why I’m running for a charity that has done an awful lot to support patients going through Leukaemia and Blood Cancers like Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Not everyone gets a second chance and has the family support I had going through my treatment. So please do give generously and help support an organisation that does so much to help.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and wish me luck on 24th April!