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Fireman faces biggest battle
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| BORN FIGHTER: Steve Phillips is teaching other sufferers how to cope with the killer disease |
A FIREFIGHTER found out he had terminal cancer only because of a scan he needed after cheating death in a paragliding accident.
Now he plans to tutor a Macmillan Cancer Care course teaching other sufferers how to cope with the killer disease in a personal battle to live long enough to party at his baby daughter's 21st birthday.
Life couldn't have been better for Steve Phillips as he happily took to the skies over Osmington's White Horse watched by his heavily pregnant partner Becky Taylor.
But seconds later the 42-year-old watch manager at Weymouth Fire Station had his world changed for ever as he came crashing down on the hillside.
Steve, of Broadwey, Weymouth said: "My paraglider collapsed in a full stall and I plunged to the ground and landed on my back.
" I thought I had crashed about 10 feet but Becky - who nearly gave birth on the spot - said I had fallen about 40 feet.
"So I went to hospital and had x-rays and they came back OK, but the doctors said I had to have a scan to make sure that everything was completely OK. It was that scan which spotted the cancer which was all over the place.
"The doctor sat me down and said they had seen something they didn't like and that it looked like a tumour in my stomach, so I sat down, felt sick and thought that was the end of my life."
The couple's daughter, Isabella, was born just four days later and within two weeks Steve had been officially diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's lymphoma.
He was told there was no cure, that he was going to die and that he had between five and eight years to live.
He said: "I felt I had been given a death sentence just when life was offering me so much.
"At that time the doctors wanted me to have chemotherapy, but I couldn't handle that without taking time to think things through.
"I opted not to have chemo but to go to Southampton on a clinical trial for antibodies which shrink the tumours."
Steve is on that for two years, after which the tumours will grow back when he will take other treatment to reduce them again, but ultimately he will have to have chemotherapy.
He said: "The only sign I have at the moment is that I get tired. I can still go running, do weights and do my job. The problem I do have is a psychological one, just coping with the fact that I have incurable cancer."
To help himself cope Steve answered a leaflet from Macmillan Cancer Care about a free six-week course entitled Living with Cancer to help people come to terms with their illness.
Steve said: "Out of that Macmillan approached me and asked if I would like to become a tutor for one of their courses for cancer sufferers. I said I would and I am off to Bath soon to be trained as a tutor.
"I am quite confident of passing that course in time to run my own course as a tutor on April 17.
"I will be trying to help cancer sufferers who may be isolated, low, anxious or tired by giving them support the way I was supported.
"I won't pretend that I am not doing it for my own needs because I am. It will give me a massive boost to be helping others.
"It is like being in your own special club where everyone needs help yet everyone contributes. I want to last a lot longer than five to eight years so I can party at my daughter's 21st birthday.
For details of Steve's course call him on 07882 565125.
10:19am Friday 28th March 2008
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