As some of you may know, on 20th December 2009 I was diagnosed with Lymphoma (cancer) - not the sort of Christmas present you ever want to get.

For me personally, it affected my chest, the bone marrow in my spine and several lymph glands, including those in my stomach. At the time I was given a 50/50 chance of beating it...

For the past 10 months I've been in and out of hospital having a myriad of tests, chemotherapy sessions and what felf like world-record quantities of needles and tubes stuck into and pulled out of me! When the doctors told me the lymphoma was responding well to the chemo - it was music to my ears!
The treatment culminated a couple of months ago in a hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) where doctors harvested the stem cells in my blood, then gave me an intensive course of chemo (which would hospitalise me for a month!). The upside of the 'turbo chemo' is that it supposed to totally kill off the cancer, vastly reducing the chance of it returning. The down side is that it takes my immune system down to zero - or an absolute neutrophil count of zero as the doctors might say - which can be fatal!
With my immune system at zero, my previously harvested stem cells were then reintroduced to help my body rebuild its immunity...It can then take months or in some cases a year or so to recover from this procedure, thankfully I repair fast and was starting to feel better in a few weeks.


I'm happy to say that I've recently been given the all clear(for now anyway) and tonight I went to the gym to start work on returning to the fitness level I enjoyed 18 months ago.

They say it's good to set yourself goals, so I've decided to train for the Birmingham Half Marathon - which takes place in just 16 days!!
I'll be running it in aid of Lymphoma Research Trust and would be very grateful to anyone who can help me reach my target of raising £2,000.

If you'd like to sponsor my run, you can do it here: http://www.justgiving.com/MartinHadland

Many thanks in advance.
Martoon