A FROME man is going to great heights to raise money for Cancer Research UK this year by hosting three different fundraising events: a charity ball, a ten-day hike over Snowdonia and a three-month hike in Iceland.
Tony Hodges has been battling cancer for 16 years in total, with three diagnoses of bowel cancer. He now wants to take the opportunity to do something big and raise money for the charity that has helped him so much.
Tony said, “I’m organising three events because I’m in complete remission now; I’m in a place with my health that I haven’t had for a very long time, so I don’t want to waste the opportunity I have to do something meaningful with it. I could develop more polyps next year or this summer, so I must do as much as I can now because I don’t know what tomorrow holds for me.”
The charity ball, the first of the three events, will take place at Rook Lane on Saturday 6th May. For more information about this event search CRUK Charity Ball on Facebook.
Tony says, “The charity ball will be an opportunity for people to learn a little bit more about bowel cancer and how it has affected me. Cancer Research UK have arranged for a guest speaker to come and give a talk during the ball.
“There will be lots of dancing (not that I can dance!) as well as info on how local people can get involved with the charity. I hope to raise as much money as I can, so they can continue their vital research.”
Tony also plans to undertake a 10-to-12-day hike of Snowdonia this summer, as well as trekking further afield to Iceland next year, when he plans to take on a three-month trek from Reykjavik to Húsavík – details about both events will come soon.
Tony’s story
Tony was diagnosed with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) – an inherited condition that leads to the growth of hundreds to thousands of non-cancerous (benign) polyps in the colon and rectum.
Tony says, “It can run in the family, with a 50% chance for the person suffering with FAP passing the mutation on to their children, though one in four people living with FAP are the first person in their family to develop the condition.
“People with FAP are born with a mutation in a gene called the APC gene. By itself, the APC gene mutation does not cause cancer. But over a person’s lifetime, more mutations build up. In rare circumstances, the person can develop cancer at a much earlier stage of their life like myself and my younger brother. My 3-year-old son has a one-in-two chance of developing my condition.”
Tony was first diagnosed with the condition when he was just 19 – he says he will never forget that day.
He explained, “I had my options talked through with me, but chemo and radiotherapy were not really an option when you have seven tennis ball-sized tumours and thousands of smaller polyps lining your large intestine and duodenum, so surgery was really my only option. Without surgery, I had a few years at best.
“I kept much of the diagnosis to myself for a long time. I only told my family that I needed surgery and left out how bad things were. I continued life as normal and the next day, I went to work and put things off for another 12 months. I was terrified at the thought of what I had to go through and after seeing my mum go through it when I was a kid; it was daunting. It wasn’t until a year later that I thought about surgery.
“I have now beaten bowel cancer three times. Back in 2006 it was stage 4 bowel cancer, and I was incredibly lucky to survive it. It then returned in 2011 with stage 2 bowel cancer, so I went through chemo and a lot of operations. Then a few years later I had to go through it again, this time it was caught early, but I still had to go through chemo.
“The year my youngest son was born, I was in hospital for four weeks due to an abscess appearing from having surgery to give me a permanent ileostomy. When my boy was born, my stomach had stopped working and I was bleeding from my stoma which resulted in more operations; one of which led to a perforation in my small bowel when had to remove and re-join part of it because it was so swollen and oxygen-starved, it was dead tissue.
“That was another six weeks, and I was sent home the day of the first Covid lockdown – so three months of being indoors was just what I needed. Spending so much time in hospital over 16 years leaves its mark and I’ve blocked a lot of it out because I just can’t comprehend what I’ve been through; my doctor once said I have PTSD from it, and I don’t think he’s wrong. It’s awful, but I’ve accepted it for what it is, because I’m lucky to be here.”
To stay up to date with Tony’s first event, the charity ball, search CRUK Charity Ball on Facebook or visit: https://bit.ly/3YtlU0M
