June duel fundraiser for Luke and Family

Hi, and thanks for visiting our page. Myself, Ben, Joe and Josh have set ourselves challenges in june challenge to raise funds to support Luke and his family.

me and ben will walk from Porthmadog to Cardigan on Monday 2nd June which is a total of 126 miles over 5 days (a marathon a day) we have recently joined forces with Joe and Josh who are also doing an incredible challenge which involves climbing snowdon 8 times on 21st and 22nd June

by joining forces and taking on 2 massive challenges we hope that we can raise some funds to support Luke, Laura and their little man Jaxon financially whilst Luke fights against a rare form of Leukaemia called Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.

To everyone that knows Luke, you will already know how positive and inspiring he is, as he has been very open and honest about his journey on social media. We would love to help in any way we can to allow Luke and family to live a relatively normal life and continue for them to do things as a family without financial worries for a while, especially as a young family.

Luke was hoping to return to work this year but doctors have told him he can not return to work due to risk of infection/ type of career (clean, safe environment with no heavy lifting, not ideal, Luke is a builder) or drive vehicles with the medication he is on which has been a huge blow for him and Laura is limited to work because of providing care for Luke and taking him to appointments in Manchester.

The help (PIP) that they receive isn’t even enough to pay the house yet alone to provide a food shop or have a quality of life (roughly need to find £1200 a month after government help, for mortgage, food shops, travel to appointments, child care)

The next two years are going to be the most vital, Luke is at his most vulnerable stage of either relapsing or developing a secondary cancer from the treatment / chemo he has already received. Rushing back to work, overdoing it, working against doctors orders put luke at risk of infection or possible relapse.

Luke has taken some time to reflect on his journey so far which i appreciate was quite tough for him to do, but this really goes to show his strength and how far he has come! Please take some time to read this if you can.

• Diagnosed in April, after having migraines for 2 weeks, shortness of breath, chest pains and bruising easily

• Firstly diagnosed after 7 hours with lymphoma after finding 11cm cancerous mass in my lymph nodes in my chest (so big it was pressing against the values of my heart, causing the chest pain, also so big it was stopping my lungs from expanding fully, causing my brain not receiving enough oxygen, which was causing my head aches. If left unattended for 1 more week, i would of suffered a fatal heart attack, as it was a rapid growing cancer (found at about 3 weeks old) very lucky

• The next day after further investigate we received the devastating news that they had found a very rare and aggressive leukaemia present Aswell called Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, there are two variants of this aggressive leukaemia and i had the more rare and aggressive variant of the two T-CELL. After hearing that i not only had a 11cm cancerous mass in my chest, i now had to fight the rare variant of an already rare and aggressive leukaemia, i thought they had already given me my death sentence. Shrewsbury hospital acted fast and felt that it was something they felt more comfortable with sending me to a specialist cancer hospital in Manchester (The Christie) which had a section that focused on my certain leukaemia

• The next few days in Manchester were focused on lots and lots of tests, me constantly wired up to machines, biopsy's of the chest mass, surgeries (bone marrows, spinal taps, chemo to the brain, wires inserted into my heart, medicines, sperm clinic appointments as treatment would make me infertile etc etc. They told me my chemo routine would be 6 cycles that would last a minimum of 8 months if everything went to plan (no infections or stem cell transplants along the way). They told me about the obstacles along the way ie/ being a blood based cancer, the new blood that my bone marrow was creating for my body was going to act in strange ways, causing me to feel extremely poorly, have frequent infections due to having no immune system, having no energy due to my low red blood count levels, turn out in bruises because of my low platelets levels, all on top of feeling general rubbish because of the chemo i would be receiving as well as the oral tablets i would be on.

• The next few months i was in hospital as a in patient as my 1st chemo cycles started, my 1st cycle i tolerated very well in hospital, with my only complication being, i developed a blood clot in my veins where a canular had been insert. They decided to do away with cannulas and insert a PICC line into my bicep, that goes up my neck and into my heart, they would put the chemo into this from now on and take any blood require out of it, in the hope i would not develop any more blood clots

• I was told before i started cycle 2 that this one was pretty nasty, and it lived up to expectations. After my first blast of cycle 2 chemo i developed yet another blood clot where they had put my PICC line in my arm, i also contraction bilateral pneumonia in both lungs, as well as sepsis and a common cold over the course of the cycle, in this particular cycle in had a 0% immune systems during the whole time so even the

common cold was life threating as my body wasn't able to fight it off, never mind the sepsis and pneumonia

• Once i got through cycle 2 and all its infections, things did start getting a little easier, i had another load of wires put directly into my chest, that went into a thicker vein in my neck and then back into my heart, this stopped the problem of my blood clots. For cycles 3,4,5 there was still plenty of nasty infection, hospital stays, few near misses, and of course hospital appointments in Manchester were still 3 times a week for blood tests and reviews but i think my body had just got used to feeling shit by now and feeling sick was just the new normal for me so i just got on with it.

• Currently on my last cycle 6, which is split into two Halfs, first half being the same as my first cycle which i tolerated well and the grand finale 2nd half is the same as cycle 2 which caused me all the problems, once i recover from that last cycle of chemo i

will have a bone marrow extraction and my results will be send off to London to see if i am in remission.

• I have been very lucky that i have responded so well to treatment, yes there has been infections along the way but they were to be expected when im basically getting my blood poisoned and manipulated with each hospital appointment. Previous bone marrows have confirmed that i have been in remission along the course of this journey and very very rarely i have not needed a stem cell transplant (which i was dreading) i am not out of the woods by any means, although my intense chemo cycles are nearly over, i enter the most nerve raking, vital stage called the maintenance stage. This goes on for the next 2-3 years, with my particular leukaemia there is a very high percentage that i can either relapse or develop a secondary cancer from the treatment i have already received, which will result in me basically starting from scratch again and more than likely needed a dreaded stem cell transplant. The thought of having to go through it all again and maybe not getting the same results as i did the first time around aren't even worth thinking about at the minute. The Maintenace stage requires me to have chemo twice a month for the next few years and although many people are aloud to return to work and start driving again in the Maintenace stage, my consultant has advised me against it due to my type of career (construction/ carpentry/ manual handling) the dust, the hygiene could cause yet more infections and the manual handling could cause me more blood clots as i am prone to them now. Any risk factor could throw me straight back to where it all started

Thankyou to anyone who has taken the time to read this, any donations would be gratefully received, myself and ben have our first training day on 29th Jan with is a 17 mile walk so we will keep you posted on our progress.