“The doctor asked if I had any questions and I asked two: ‘Am I going to die?’ And: ‘Am I going to lose my hair?’”
Taylor Kershaw was in his first year of secondary school when his mother, Michelle, noticed a lump in Taylor’s neck. She contacted the GP and they initially thought he was suffering from mumps. But when the lump didn’t go away, he had more tests, including a biopsy, which confirmed bad news: Taylor had Hodgkin lymphoma, a form of cancer that affects the lymph nodes and lymphatic system.
Michelle recalls the heartbreaking moment well. “Taylor was old enough to know what cancer could mean and that it was a harsh journey he was about to go on,” she says, “but I’m so proud of the way he’s handled everything.”
Surgery, followed by three months of chemotherapy, left Taylor feeling exhausted and sick. Along the way, he developed strategies to deal with the treatment. “As long as I got told what was happening then I was fine,” he says. “But cancer made me grow up very quickly.”
For his chemotherapy, Taylor got the chance to join the Euronet clinical trial supported by Cancer Research UK. Thankfully, this treatment was successful, and he went into remission, which meant he didn’t have to have radiotherapy. Now 24, he knows first-hand how research discoveries are helping children and young people with cancer to live longer, better lives.
Taylor’s mother, Michelle, remembers how pleased he was to be able to help others
The Euronet trial, for children and young people under 18 years old, compared different ways of treating Hodgkin lymphoma to help lower the risk of long-term side effects. Doctors usually treat Hodgkin lymphoma with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which often work very well.
But these treatments can have serious side effects and some can be life-long, so researchers wanted to look at different ways of treating Hodgkin lymphoma to see if they could improve treatment and reduce side effects.
Michelle remembers that Taylor was “very fearful” of having to go through radiotherapy, so the whole family were hugely relieved when he was offered this gentler path. “For all of us, we were reassured that the treatment he was going to get was going to be kinder than what had been traditionally on offer,” she says.
Her son was pleased that taking part in a trial meant he could make a difference to others, she says. “He realised it would also have benefits for other young people – he saw it as something positive to come out of his cancer diagnosis,” says Michelle.
There are about 4,200 new cases of cancer in children and young people each year in the UK, which means around 12 families a day learn that their child has cancer. Thanks to research, more than eight in 10 children and young people diagnosed with cancer in the UK survive for at least 10 years, but the reality is that about 490 still die from the disease each year in the UK. This is why Cancer Research UK is more committed than ever to its aims to bring together experts from across the UK and around the world to fund the very best research and tackle the unique challenges that are holding back progress.
Looking back now, 11 years after the diagnosis, Taylor is full of gratitude that he survived and can look for positives from his experience. He says that cancer made him “even more determined to make a success of my life”.
Taylor started as an apprentice technician with a car retailer aged 16
He’s certainly achieved some already. Having passed his exams, he started, aged 16, as an apprentice technician with a car retailer. “I’m proud of my son’s determination to get what he wants out of life,” says Michelle. “I knew he could do it.”
But Taylor will never be able to forget the time he spent at the Schiehallion unit at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow. That’s why it was an emotional moment when he reached the top of the 1,100-metre Schiehallion mountain in Perthshire in spring 2015.
With his family alongside him, he planted a tree with an inspirational message attached on a tag. The words, by civil rights leader Martin Luther King had kept Taylor going through treatment: “If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving.”
Cancer Research UK continues to discover new ways to treat cancer so all children and young people can live longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer. Almost 30,000 cancer deaths in children and young people have been avoided since the 1970s in the UK, thanks in part to the charity’s work.
Taylor is one of those who is part of that success. “I’m so thankful for the treatment that saved my life, the research that made that treatment possible and for the amazing family and friends who were there for me,” he says.
He and his girlfriend are expecting a baby girl this autumn. “She’ll hopefully be here in the next two months and we’ve just got a wee flat,” he says. “We’re just living life, really.”
This Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, find out more about cancers that affect children and young people, and Cancer Research UK’s work in this area at cruk.org/childrenandyoungpeople
