Gordon didn’t have any symptoms when he was invited for a lung health check. In fact, he felt the best he had for years. This didn’t stop him from attending the check up and this decision probably saved his life.
“The consultant said when I went for that original scan, I saved my own life.
“I first found out about the lung health check when I received a letter through the post. There was no obvious reason why I had received it and at the time, I had no symptoms. I felt really well, the best I had felt in years. However, I realised there much be a reason why I had been invited so I made an appointment.
“I saw it as an insurance policy; if there was nothing wrong, great! I hadn’t lost anything in confirming that. But if there was something, then you need to deal with it as soon as possible.
“I had a CT scan in the car park of my local Asda, just a short walk away. I was in there about 10 minutes and that was it! It was so easy.
“I then received a phone call on 21st December saying I needed to come into hospital for an appointment and they advised I bring my wife with me. At that point, the alarm bells started to ring.
“Because it was so close to Christmas, they offered me an appointment in the new year. I wanted to deal with whatever it was as soon as possible however, and so on Christmas Eve I was told I had lung cancer, which made a bit of a mess of Christmas!
I was told there are four stages of lung cancer and I was stage one, and the earliest stage of stage one. That relaxed me immediately. It doesn’t get any better than that.
“I was able to have keyhole surgery because it had been caught so early and I didn’t need any further treatment, no chemo or anything.
“Eight weeks after surgery, I went on holiday. We went to Spain. Then three weeks after that, we went to Turkey. I wanted to go somewhere warmer so I could swim and start building my lungs back up.
“Speaking about cancer to people who’ve got cancer, or had cancer, I almost feel like a fraud because I didn’t experience any of that. I didn’t experience any of that because my cancer was caught so early. I played my part in that because I went for that check up. It would have been really easy to not bother because I felt so well but you need to go and deal with it.
“It’s well worth taking an hour out to do it because you’re not going to lose anything by being right when there’s nothing wrong with you. But if there is something wrong with you, you’ve got to find out as quickly as possible. It’s not going away and you’ve got to deal with it.”
