Mark reflects on his diagnosis of Hodgkin lymphoma, treatment with ABVD chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. Almost ten years on he talks about how he coped with life changes before, during and after his lymphoma treatment.

My lymphoma story began late in 2014 when I noticed a pain in my lower back. I could set my watch by it because every day at 10pm the pain began. I’d had a big knee operation earlier in the year and wondered if it could be connected.

I saw my GP who prescribed diazepam, but it made no difference at all. It wasn’t until a month or two later that I went back to the GP as I was now noticing other symptoms.

I was feeling absolutely rubbish and losing weight very quickly, having night sweats and was now experiencing pain in my chest as well as my back. I also had a lump in my groin.

A blood test was organised and the results suggested something was not right, so I was referred for more tests. Before that though, I was with my parents and needed to duck down to get through a door. This was utterly excruciating, so my parents took me to A&E.

I was kept in A&E where they carried out an ultrasound and decided to remove the lump from my groin for testing. A PET scan was arranged and I was becoming aware that they were considering cancer.

“Two weeks later I went back for the results and was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma. It was just before my 30th birthday and even today I recall so clearly how emotional I felt.

My son was just 5 at the time and all I could think about was that I wanted to be there for him.

I saw the scan results and it almost looked like someone had coloured it in from the neck to the groin. The lymphoma was in my neck, chest, stomach, spleen and groin. But the doctor and Macmillan nurses talked through everything really clearly and gently explained that they were going to start ABVD chemotherapy. I left that consultation feeling fairly positive after that discussion, which was surprising, but was certain I just wanted to get started with the treatment.

Fertility was discussed and I had sperm frozen and was told it would be kept for 10 years. My son’s mother and I had split up before all this, but it felt like the right thing to do. I was to have six rounds of ABVD chemotherapy and I made up my mind that no matter what the treatment felt like, I’d just accept it.

To start with I didn’t find the treatment too bad, but by halfway through, the treatment had taken its toll. I felt fatigued and was struggling with my veins which had got sore and hard. I’d developed a lump in my neck before treatment started, and this went down after the first round of chemotherapy, so I thought it was working. I had a scan half way through and another at the end of treatment.

Unfortunately not all the cancer had gone. It was explained that it now looked as though they would need to do a stem cell transplant using my own stem cells.

GCSF was used to stimulate blood cells to develop in preparation for harvesting them for the stem cell transplant. I managed to get enough stem cells in the first attempt, but the GCSF had left my body feeling achy, albeit it was completely manageable.

I had to have a lot more intensive chemotherapy before the transplant, and had to stay in hospital at this time. A line was inserted which really helped massively. It was really tough and I struggled with eating and had really bad diarrhoea. I knew I had to get through this to feel physically good again, but it was a really tough time.

I had been working in the prison service before my lymphoma diagnosis and after a period of time off sick it was agreed I could work from home for a time. However, just before my stem cell transplant they were back in touch with me asking for a capability hearing.