StemCell Therapy

Only 3,224 miles to go. Let me at it, says Geoff Thomas as he prepares to set off around Spain, 21 days of pure agony covering every inch of La Vuelta, each stage completed 24 hours before the peloton attacks the third and final grand tour of the season.

Thomas is a cancer survivor dedicated through his own foundation to raising cash and awareness of blood cancer, the disease that struck down the former Crystal Palace midfielder in 2003. Thomas was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia and given just three months to live. It was, he says, a dark place, yet here he is 12 years in remission and immersed in another lung busting slog to make life possible for others.

The scale of the challenge is insane, or stupid as Thomas describes it, for a bunch of amateur cyclists, one of whom is 67 years old. Having already completed the Giro dItalia and the Tour de France on the same terms this year there is no backing out now.

The initiative is after all called the Geoff Thomas Three Tours Challenge, and for better or worse he will be in the saddle on Friday alongside four equally committed travellers to attempt something only 39 professional riders have done before. The hope is to funnel more than 1m to Cure Leukaemia, the charity set up by the man he credits with saving his life Professor Charlie Craddock.

I got involved in all this through going through the illness. My only chance of survival was stem cell replacement. At my first meeting with a doctor I was given three months to live. The next day I saw Professor Craddock and he put me in intensive chemo straight away. He offered a different prognosis, saying I might have three years.

I was lucky my sister was a very good match as the donor. The treatment more or less kills you then they bring you back to life. My sister had to have the stem cells removed from her spine, quite a painful procedure. These days its like giving blood. They harvest the cells from a blood sample. As a result more people are going on the donors list.

Back when I was diagnosed there was a clinical trial that I couldnt get on. It proved very successful, resulting in survival rates of more than 90 per cent for the drug involved. There was no real infrastructure to run clinical trials back in 2003. A lot of hospitals did not have the facilities, no clinical researchers in place etc. For a small amount of money in the grand scheme we are now able to put that into place.

Hospitals are now working together to get the results required and survival rates have gone up. As a result of the work we have done with clinical trials we have seen almost 200m worth of drugs available for free to patients on the NHS. And that is something we are really proud of.

The fight goes on, and so do the fundraisers, and for this one, you can never be ready, says Thomas. Some of the climbs are ridiculous. I dont look at the course or whats head I just think of bringing enough weight to bear on the pedal to turn the wheel. And you have to be lucky.

I missed a few days of the Tour de France after I fell and injured my hip. It was only on day two, a flat bit, and it became infected about ten days later. I was gutted to have to stop but I realised my aim is to get awareness out there and pull in the money that I know is making a difference to peoples lives. This is the final leg. Im determined tol stay on the bike this time and make it to the end.

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From death's door to mountain top, beating cancer the Geoff Thomas way - iNews

This entry was posted on August 17, 2017 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Death by Stem Cells. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |