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Help Ben pay for therapies and support charities

Thankyou for taking the time to read this page,you may already know me or maybe this is the first time you’ve ever heard of me. My names Ben, I’m 34 and in 2017 I was given the news I had cancer..... which was a bit of a bummer!


Since then I've been on one hell of a journey and I'm hoping that with your support I can continue on the road to recovery.


A very brief (it’s a long story) bit of background.


Back in 2017 I was living in New Zealand when a routine chest Xray for a residents visa found a 10cm mass in my chest cavity (yikes) after very quickly putting dreams of a new life on the other side of the world on hold I was flown home and put under the care of oncologists at the Leicester royal infirmary and surgeons at the Glenfield hospital in Leicester where I underwent a biopsy (biopsies are horrible) to confirm I had a thymoma, basically a thymus gland that had gone cancerous, what followed was what I'm sure many cancer patients are familiar with..... Hell! months of chemotherapy, surgery, infections, pneumonia, stress, pain, very near death experiences and almost constant worry to name just a few of the delights dealing with an illness like this can bring, Then to top it off and to make matters worse after more than 2 years of this I was told things were now worse, I had debilitating nerve damage all down my right side, I was exhausted, weak, my immune system was virtually non existent, I had lost over 20 kilos in weight and although the original tumour had been removed via a sternotomy the disease had spread so I now had tumours in both lungs, the chest muscle were the biopsy had been performed and other metastasis throughout my chest cavity.... all very scary stuff, and this is when I came to a crossroads... what should my next move be? the oncologists wanted to give me more chemo or radiotherapy which so far in my experience had only made things worse! So I decided to go a different route, a more holistic and therapeutic route focusing on whole body healing. Before starting chemo, while still having tests and waiting for the biopsy, I had shrank my original tumour 2cm by simply looking after myself better, I had switched to organic food, cut out processed foods, cut out sugar, started taking certain supplements, cut out alcohol and tried to do fun things with friends and family before the dreaded chemo started and quite to my surprise when I had my pre chemo scan the tumour was now 8cm, what I should have done at this point was hold off on treatment and kept doing what I was doing, but I wasn’t confident enough to stick to my guns back then and honestly I was still pretty terrified, so I went with the doctors recommendations and treatment plan but after their efforts failed I decided to go back to my original method only now the situation had gotten worse, I was in a bad place, I was weak, depressed and constantly wracked by pain plus I had no money to pay for the alternative treatments and therapies I knew could help. As I had been out of the country so long before coming home I wasn’t entitled to any benefits, my savings were all gone, work was out of the question although I had tried to go back to my old job as a carpenter on more than one occasion I was just too weak and run down and inevitably just made myself worse, so although I had tons of information on alternative therapeutic approaches I didn’t have the means to put them into action, that’s where go fund me came in, my family and friends set up a page and through the amazing generosity of people like you they managed to raise 10 thousand pounds! which over the last 8 months has helped pay for all kinds of alternative treatments as well as a life changing operation on my damaged nerves that although hasn’t cured them completely has after nearly 2 years of agonising pain finally enabled me to get to a place where I'm much more self-sufficient and able to enjoy life again. This more or less brings us to where we are now, life is now a lot better so much so I couldn’t even quantify the difference all this help and support has made but I still have a way to go and now I'm able to do more I have started this fundraiser (mainly so I don’t feel I'm just taking your money for nothing in return). One of my great loves and something I sorely missed for all those months and actually years I was seriously ill is riding motorcycles, and when things were really bad, I would promise myself one day I would be riding again. So once the procedure on my nerves was performed and healed and I felt the pain was low enough to manage it I got myself a bike, a Royal Enfield Himalayan, nothing fancy or expensive but something that had the pure essence of motorcycling and also a friendly owners club (The low monthly payments also helped). I still have many treatments to pay for and although things are going in the right direction it takes a lot of time and also of course cold hard cash, I've now been back in the country long enough to qualify for benefits but that doesn’t leave any money for the treatments I desperately need and so me and an incredible friend of mine hopefully with your support are planning to do a sponsored motorcycle ride we are calling Himmys for health starting from John O Groats and finishing at Lands' end avoiding all motorways and as much as possible riding only on b roads and even throwing in a few green lanes (the Himalayans favourite playground) Although this sounds very jolly it will be a big challenge for me as until even a few months ago just getting up to go to the bathroom would leave me in agony and drained but I'm determined to do it and to get out and see this beautiful United Kingdom of ours after years of staring at walls and daydreaming. The money raised will go towards me continuing my treatment as well as portions being donated to two local charities based in Leicester that have helped me out immensely, the MS therapy centre at Freemans common that has been letting me use their hyperbaric oxygen chamber for donations that are a fraction of the cost of getting this treatment privately and Together Against Cancer a remarkable charity based in Leicester that offer cancer patients workshops, counselling, alternative therapies and all sorts of other support all free of charge, they both really are doing amazing work. The plan is that if this takes off to make it an annual event that can benefit more people and more charities. Again, thank you for reading and I hope you will send a donation our way no matter how small.


Peace and love


Ben

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Donations 

  • Anonymous
    • £10 
    • 3 yrs
  • Anonymous
    • £15 
    • 3 yrs
  • Christine Stockman
    • £20 
    • 3 yrs
  • Natalie Hood
    • £20 
    • 3 yrs
  • Stephen Garratt
    • £100 
    • 3 yrs
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Organizer and beneficiary

Ben Johnson
Organizer
England
Lisa Barnes
Beneficiary

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