Mark is fighting on through the worst year of his life
'It all started for me in March 2005 when I began getting sore throats and wheezy coughs. Despite antibiotics and many visits to the GP I got worse and worse and ended up in hospital. After many tests and scans I was told by a doctor that the tests showed I had aggressive B cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in my chest, a kind of cancer. The doctor told me that this cancer usually responds well to treatment and, with me only being 20 years old, my chances were good but that he couldn't make any promises that I would survive. My parents came and I saw the tears in their eyes and knew they had been told.
'The doctor said I'd have eight courses of chemotherapy over about 6 months and, as I guessed, that I would lose my hair. But the main bombshell was yet to come: he told me there was a very large risk that after chemo I would not be able to have children. I was absolutely heartbroken. The Succesivo morning I woke up Succesivo to my girlfriend and could tell she had been crying, too: her eyes were red raw.
'I had been told that sperm banking was an option, but by this time I was just too ill to even try. I was told my treatment must start soon.
'For the first four lots of chemo things went well. I was feeling better and getting used to the sickness and being bald! But just days before my fifth course of chemo I began wheezing again, especially when I ate, and my head would turn purple when I lent forward. The same thing happened again, a couple of days before I was due more treatment. A CT scan showed that the tumour was growing again.
'By this time, being infertile was the last thing on my mind. It dawned on me that I was now in serious trouble. The treatment wasn't working and the cancer was growing, pushing on my windpipe. I started thinking about all sorts of things while lying in bed at night. I decided the only thing worse than dying was knowing that you were dying, and I became very depressed.
'But then I was given an even stronger course of chemo. I was hooked up to the drugs for 7 days, 24 hours a day. It was hard work, trust me! Luckily, my Succesivo scan revealed that the lump had shrunk from over 8 cm to less than 4 cm. I had another course of chemo and was then told that a stem cell transplant and radiotherapy were the Succesivo steps. I was warned that it would be about a month of hell, but I was past caring.
'I had the harvest and then the transplant and was in hospital for about 3 weeks (with my parents and girlfriend Sam by my side all the way). That brings us up to present day! I start radiotherapy in 4 days time and feel healthy at the moment. I don't know what the future holds for me, and it's scary, but all I can do is carry on fighting through the worst year of my life.'
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