Center-distance runner Andrew McAslan hopes a world fund-raising marketing campaign this weekend may help scientists discover solutions to the follicular lymphoma illness that he was identified with this yr
When Andrew McAslan gained 800m bronze within the British Universities Championships behind Alex Botterill and Piers Copeland two years in the past, he had hopes of progressing to worldwide stage. After barely coaching as a youngster, he was on the upward curve and felt the sky was the restrict.
However his type and health started to deteriorate. After combating glandular fever whereas learning on the College of Tub, he started to really feel even worse throughout 2020. In Could this yr he ran an underpar 1:56.21 for 800m in Leeds. “I knew in that second that one thing was not proper,” his associate and fellow 800m runner Leah Barrow says.
McAslan looked for solutions and eventually, following a number of irritating misdiagnoses, obtained the worst potential information. He had an incurable blood most cancers known as non-Hodgkin follicular lymphoma.
Athletics expertise runs in McAslan’s household as his sister, Kirsten, is the British worldwide 400m and 400m hurdler. Nevertheless, his athletics desires are presently on maintain as he offers with this life-threatening illness.
“Sadly my most cancers is at present incurable,” he says, “due to this fact even when remission is achieved, it’s going to nonetheless be residing in my physique and there’s a excessive likelihood that it’ll begin rising once more. Nevertheless there isn’t any indication of when and the way extreme.”
Barrow, who lives with McAslan in Leeds, provides: “It may be handled however it’s going to nonetheless dwell inside him and due to this fact a relapse is just about sure. Andrew has it at stage 4 on the age of 25 so until a treatment is discovered the therapy choices will finally run out.”
McAslan believes the expansion of the illness is linked to when he had glandular fever in 2018. Then, throughout 2020, his performances in racing and coaching started to fall. “I wasn’t operating effectively in any respect and couldn’t work out why,” he says.
BUCS 800m (l to r): Piers Copeland, Alex Botterill, Andrew McAslan
As he entered this yr, he explains: “By January I used to be experiencing fatigue and a few unusual discomfort in my abdomen and bowel. Together with that my coaching and efficiency was getting worse. I began to hunt medical assist and I used to be advised I most likely had IBS, then bloods additionally confirmed my iron and haemoglobin ranges have been low, due to this fact I used to be given iron tablets to try to enhance that.
“I lowered my coaching to try to assist enhance what appeared to be iron deficiency,” he continues. “The tablets improved my iron ranges, my coaching improved barely for a brief interval, nonetheless my haemoglobin ranges remained low and the prognosis I had been given simply didn’t really feel proper. In consequence, I went to see two totally different consultants to try to get a extra knowledgeable opinion.
“They got here to the identical conclusion that I simply had IBS most likely attributable to stress. Certainly one of them even mentioned they may rule out most cancers immediately attributable to my age. Once more, I had a sense that this prognosis simply wasn’t proper, so I pushed for a scan and additional investigation, nonetheless I needed to wait a few months for this.
“Within the meantime a big lump instantly appeared underneath my chin and different smaller ones on my neck. I went to see a health care provider about these and I used to be placed on an pressing referral for them to be scanned and biopsied.”
Then got here the grim information. “When the outcomes got here again I used to be identified with stage 4 follicular lymphoma, which is an incurable blood most cancers. I’m at present having immuno-chemotherapy over a course of six months with the goal of getting a whole response to therapy, which suggests there can be no proof of illness.”
He provides: “Regardless of having signs for round six months, the guide mentioned that I’ll have most likely had this illness for round three to 4 years and that it has simply been slowly rising.”
Hopes on discovering a treatment are pinned on an enormous fund-raising occasion this weekend (Oct 24-25). The impression on social media is prone to be important too provided that the particular person driving the marketing campaign is Nicola Mendelsohn, a high government at Fb who was identified with follicular lymphoma 4 years in the past.
Mendelsohn based the Follicular Lymphoma Basis with the aim of funding analysis, elevating consciousness, serving to sufferers set up assist networks and in the end discovering a treatment.
In the course of the two-day fund-raising interval as effectively each donation obtained will probably be doubled by the Basis’s beneficiant fund-matchers. General the aim is to lift £1 million.
McAslan says: “I wish to increase consciousness for this illness and the wonderful work that the Follicular Lymphoma Basis are doing. Their goal is to discover a treatment for this illness and they’re assured that that is potential.
“It has simply been underfunded for thus lengthy so the time has not been put into discovering a treatment however the specialists have mentioned that it’s potential.”
The success find a vaccine so rapidly for Covid-19 has additionally given McAslan hope that comparable could be achieved with follicular lymphoma. “The haematologists mentioned that if the identical form of work could be put into discovering a vaccine for Covid then a treatment might be discovered for follicular lymphoma.
“It’s nearly as if Covid has given folks the arrogance {that a} treatment could be discovered for this.”
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