FEATURES: Hope for Life

By MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
22 January 2010

IT WAS the day Anna Thomson and her fiance Garry feared they would never see.

As the childhood sweethearts walked down the aisle between seated rows of their family and friends at The George Hotel, it was hard to keep their emotions in check.

Then, Anna took Garry's hand and began the traditional vows that the couple had decided upon, only stopping after the words "in sickness and in health".

And there the vows ended. Somehow, the final words - "till death us do part" - didn't seem necessary.

Three months earlier, doctors had told Anna that she had at most two years to live, and that she may be lucky to survive more than a few months. What had begun as unexplained exhaustion in late 2007, eventually turned out to be Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

"It all started in my final year at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen," recalls the friendly 23-year-old.

"I was just so tired all the time. By the time I'd finished the ten-minute walk to uni I was knackered. I had to have a nap at my desk.

"I went to the doctor and she said it was probably just stress. I was in my final year at uni, preparing a dissertation and working part-time as a home-help so I could see where she was coming from, but I've been stressed before so I knew that wasn't it.

"I kept going back to her saying something was seriously wrong, but she just prescribed me anxiety tablets."

But during a visit home in early 2008, she went to see her family doctor in Edinburgh, who suspected there may be more to her illness and recommended an X-ray.

"I went back to Aberdeen and asked my doctor to schedule an X-ray but she just laughed at me and gave me more tablets."

Anna's health though was going from bad to worse and soon she had no choice but to return once more to her GP.

"I was being sick every half an hour, and the only thing that stopped the vomiting was sleep. Then I developed a rash on my leg. There was a meningitis scare at uni at the time so I went to the doctor to check it out.

"It was a different doctor this time and he told me that I didn't have meningitis, but that there was something wrong with my chest.

"He couldn't locate my heartbeat."

On 7 April 2008 Anna finally got her X-ray - and it uncovered a tumour the size of a cigarette packet nestling between her ribcage and her lung. It was so large that it had pushed her heart out of position.

"When they first told me about it they didn't say I had cancer," she goes on. "They used the name Hodgkin's Lymphoma, which I actually thought was a bug.

"They said a really high percentage of people recover from it after treatment so I didn't think it was a big deal.

"Then they started talking about chemotherapy and radiotherapy and I asked, 'isn't that what they use to treat cancer?', and they were like, 'well...yeah!'. I felt numb."

Anna went on to endure three courses of therapy in the following year, each one more painful and sickening than the last.

But each time the tumour returned, and in February last year she was presented with an agonising ultimatum.

"They offered me another course of chemo and I asked them if it was going to work this time," she says, choking back the tears. "They said I was going to die either way.

"The doctors said there was a 20 per cent chance it would work, and even if it did, the longest I would be expected to survive is two years.

"If it didn't work I was told I may only have a couple of months."

Anna went home to talk it over with Garry, 23, a music engineer, who she started seeing when they were 15-year-olds at Trinity High.

Garry took her for a picnic in the Botanics and proposed.

"I felt happy," she says. "I knew he wasn't doing it because I was dying because we'd been going out since school. It was the right time.

"I had my reservations though as we both knew there was a big chance that he would soon become a widower."

With Garry's support Anna decided to go for the last ditch chemotherapy, in the knowledge that it may do little more than fill their last few months together with yet more misery and sickness.

But then something wonderful happened.

The treatment began to work, better than anyone could have hoped, offering a glimmer of hope.

On 3 May last year, thanks to Garry's organisational work and the patience and understanding of hotel staff, they got married.

"It must have been hard for them to plan a wedding around my treatment but they were fantastic," says Anna.

"We had the ceremony and did the wedding photos, and then they scheduled time for me to go for a nap before the reception.

"We said the traditional vows but we dropped the phrase 'till death do us part', because we didn't want death to be anywhere near us that day."

Today, the couple live in Inverleith, close to the spot where Garry professed his undying love. Anna sits watching their cats Charlie and Misty chase shadows on the floor, and fidgets, dissatisfied, with her pixie-cut hair. "It's not a style I would have chosen," she admits, despite its elegance.

"My hair is still growing back from the therapy. I just want to be able to tie it up again."

It is a sign of progress though that she can style her own hair after months wearing wigs. "I've got ten, including a pink one, a short red one, a bob, a straight wig, a wavy wig and a long curly wig that I wore to my wedding," she says. "I've got a wig for every occasion."

Anna is currently enjoying the longest spell of good health she's experienced since university.

"I've been doing so well recently that my consultant says that there's a chance I could make a full recovery," she beams, with a glint of hope in her eyes.

"I don't want to say that I feel totally fine now in case something bad happens, but I don't feel sick and tired any more. I haven't had a scan in a while but the doctors said as long as I continue to feel good it's probably best to avoid it in case it throws up some bad news.

"I just want to enjoy our life together for the time being without worrying about what the future may bring."

'I THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD CAUSE, SO I WENT FOR IT'

ANNA is currently in training for Edinburgh's Cancer Research UK Race for Life on Sunday 13 June.

Race for Life 2010 is the UK's largest women-only fundraising event series where all the money raised goes to fund Cancer Research UK's life-saving work.

Anna says: "I first did the Race For Life in 2007, not long before I started getting sick strangely enough.

"I wasn't really running it with anyone in particular in mind. A few friends were doing it and I thought it was a good cause, so I went for it.

"I wanted to do it again in 2008 but I was far too sick, but I managed to walk it last year. Garry and his family came along to cheer me on, and it was a great atmosphere.

"All of the money raised through the Race For Life helps to fund research into cures. It's hard to say how the Race For Life has impacted me directly but I suppose all of the treatment I received developed as the result of research funded through charities like this."

Women in Edinburgh can enter Cancer Research UK's Race for Life at www.raceforlife.org or by calling 0871-641 1111 0871-641 1111 .