A man who had “never been sick” noticed purple spots on his chest before doctors warned him he might have just three weeks to live.
Search and rescue worker Harry Simpson had taking a shower before a trip to Dubai when he noticed “a couple of purple spots” on his chest in February last year.
But Harry, who lives in Belfast, thought nothing of it and spent the next two weeks skydiving, riding jet skis and celebrating his 26th birthday.
Little did he know the spots would lead to a horrific leukaemia diagnosis that would left doctors warning him he might have just weeks to live.
However, during some training for his job in the mountains, he began to notice something wrong.
The now 27 year old who studied in Liverpool, said: "I was really tired, just fatigued. I was going to the gym and I was out of breath, nowhere near as good as what I could be.
"I went to my doctor and they were like, 'We think you might have a viral infection from Dubai', so they gave me antibiotics to take for about two weeks. I thought I must be alright, so I went down south and climbed the highest mountain in Ireland.
"I had to stop 20 times going up that mountain and I was like, 'Something really isn't right'. I could literally feel my heart going mad in my chest, like really pumping.
“And I could feel it in my arteries, down my neck, and my lymph nodes had swollen up on one side. I just couldn't breathe."
His GP sent him for blood tests at his request and after a day of colleagues saying he looked like he’d lost weight, he found "10 missed calls from different consultants".
They had managed to get through to his mum who called Harry “in a wee bit of panic” telling him to ring the hospital.
Harry said: "It was just a random consultant who'd looked at my bloods under a microscope that day. They just said, 'Look, don't want to scare you or anything, but we need you to come to the cancer centre in the city hospital tomorrow morning. It's the only bed we have available in Belfast. Bring a bag, you might have to stay for one night'."
Despite this, Harry still "thought there was nothing wrong". He told the Liverpool Echo: "I just could never think I would be sick. I've never been sick in my life with anything small, I don't get colds. I've never really been sick at all, so I just didn't expect anything. I was just expecting something silly that needs to be sorted out."
But Harry would spend from March to October last year on a hospital ward - with visitors not allowed due to Covid protocols and how vulnerable all the patients were.
He was diagnosed with early T-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ETP-ALL) and told he could have “maximum three weeks left”.
Harry said: "I just sat and cried. My granny was sitting there and she was upset, and my dad was trying to be a bit of strength for me."
The rare blood cancer starts from white blood cells in the bone marrow, so Harry needed "intensive chemotherapy" to "destroy my whole body" before doing a stem cell transplant, donated by his sister.
He said: "No amount of chemo in the world was ever going to solve my issue. My cancer was always going to come back because of where it developed. The stem cell was literally my only chance at living."
Harry underwent severe treatment over the next few months to deal with the cancer and even stop it spreading to his brain.
But all the surgery and work took its toll and he suffered agonising headaches and was even put on stroke alert.
In just five weeks, across a huge number of different treatments, Harry lost 15kg and at one point his clinician was worried he wouldn’t make it.
Throughout he battled to stay positive and kept a journal every day as well.
While he still could, he rode an exercise bike in the hospital and raised £40,000 for charities like Friends of the Cancer Centre, as well as Anthony Nolan and DKMS, which help connect blood cancer patients and blood or stem cell donors.
Harry said: "It's incredible how people just rally around you and you really see what people mean to you. It definitely changed my outlook on everything.
“A lot of people I'll cherish forever because, I mean, you can't really put into words what it's like going through an experience like that, and then your nearest and dearest have been there for you every single day. It's good because there are a lot of bad days."
Then, two days before Christmas, Harry was told there was no sign of cancer in his latest bone marrow test - the first time this has happened since his diagnosis.
He and his family were over the moon, but Harry is at high risk of the cancer returning.
He still goes for weekly check-ups and takes medication to keep the cancer at bay, but he was able to go go-karting for his 27th birthday this Saturday after a year of little socialising.
Harry said: "I take every single day as a new challenge.
"Every night when I'm going to bed, I just take a minute or two to be thankful for something I've done during the day, and I go to sleep and I'm happy. Then when I wake up, I wake up happy because here's another day."
