AN INSPIRATIONAL young Christie’s patient, who dreamed of becoming a journalist, today tells in his own words how he faced up to the news that he has just months to live ...

By Tom Buckley:

AFTER I was told the news that the tumour in my head was inoperable and there was nothing more that could be done, I remember leaving the hospital feeling surprisingly at ease with the situation.

I think a lot of this was down to the fact that I had been receiving bad news about my health for over four years and in many ways had been waiting for this news to come for at least two of those years.

So, the big question that I was about to find the answer to was how was I going to react. I always thought that if I was ever to get a terminal diagnosis there would be no meaning to my life, no purpose and therefore, no point. For the first day or two, whilst my mind processed the overwhelming information, I did have waves of this emotion and could hear myself saying ‘what’s the point?’ to pretty much everything I did.

After only a few days however, this all changed. I suddenly accepted what was happening to me and decided to try and enjoy what time I had left.

I have been given less than a year to live and therefore the need to do things whilst I am feeling healthy becomes so much more important. I decided to do the coast-to coast walk for a number of reasons. I really wanted to raise some money for the hospital that has given me four years of life. In these four years I have completed a year at university and travelled the world.

Had it not been for the amazing support from the doctors and nurses at the hospital I would have been dead by 2004.

I also wanted to do the walk as a personal challenge and to keep fit. I believe the longer I can stay fit, the longer I can stay alive.

The walk was certainly a challenge! My family and I only had about six weeks’ planning for the walk, because I was only given a two to ten month life expectancy I obviously wanted to get on with it as soon as possible!

By the time we all set out on a freezing late November morning at St Bees Head, Cumbria, we had already raised £15,000 and thought this was amazing. Not in our wildest imaginations did we think that by the New Year it would have topped £70,000.

The walk proved to be a journey where I realised that Manchester, the UK and even the world over is full of giving people, despite what we see in the news everyday about our ‘declining society’.

I lost count of the amount of people who came up to me to shake my hand, give me a hug or a donation after seeing me in the media.

It is the one thing that kept me going when I was struggling – which seemed to be everyday!

Had it not been for the incredible support, I would definitely have taken at least one rest day, because I had some seriously painful ankles! However, when I saw the donations and messages of support that people had left for me on the website, it really gave me that extra bit of energy I needed to carry on.

A lot of people have called me inspirational for the way I have taken the news and turned it into a positive, but I would have to disagree. Five years ago, if I had read about this story happening to another person, I probably would have used the word inspirational too and thought that I would never have been able to do what they have done. It is amazing what we can deal with though.

I am not inspirational, I’m just making the best I can out of a pretty rubbish situation. One thing I’ve learned is that throughout our lives we will receive bad news and the best way to deal with bad news is to have a coping strategy put into place as soon as possible. For example, whenever I have been told bad news over the last four years (which has been a lot!) I make plans so that I have something to focus on.

Back in September when I received my prognosis I had two ways in which I could go but only ever one outcome, one that will never change. I chose the positive option, one that has allowed me to escape self-pity and make the most of the time I have left.

Over the past few years I have come to realise that in the face of bad news and difficult times it is only really you at the end of it all who is best placed to help yourself.

It has always been my ambition to be a journalist and I’m delighted to donate my payment from the Reporter for this article to my charity campaign.

A triumph over adversity: Tom’s story

TOM, 23, developed a cancer of the eye, called retinoblastoma, when he was just two weeks old.

He went blind in one eye but lived a healthy life for the next 19 years. But while studying economics at university in Swansea, he was diagnosed with bone cancer in his leg, as a result of his treatment as a baby.

The disease spread and Tom endured chemotherapy, radiotherapy and operations. But the cancer, called osteosarcoma, has returned each year for the past three years – twice in his lung and twice in his eye socket.

In September last year, he received the devastating news that a tumour had developed in his brain which doctors said was inoperable. He was given less than a year to live.

Tom, from Comberbach near Northwich, was joined on his 180-mile 18-day Coast2Coast walk from St Bees Head in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire, by his parents Gordon and Dawn and twin sister Jennifer.

He reached his destination on December 16, and the walk has so far raised more than £70,000 in aid of The Christie.

To donate to Tom’s fundraising cause go to www.justgiving.com/thebuckers.