Father of two who sent his life saving after doctors told him he had three months to live.... Still alive after 15 years tells his story

Ron Adams, 84, a former builder, was told he had incurable lung cancer in October 2002 so immediately went to the shops.

He bought a £20,000 Mercedes CLK, dubbed 'the cancer car', £3,650 on seven koi carp fish and hundreds of pounds on a collection of 507 pre-war model cars.The father-of-two, of Marston Green, Birmingham, had approached his GP with a persistent cough, before being referred to Solihull hospital for further tests in 2002.

He said: 'They sent for me. They had the results of my chest X-ray and felt it would be best if I brought someone with me.

'That got me thinking. I took my eldest son Mark - he's now 55. I was shown to a consulting room and there were two of them.

'They said it was cancer of the lung and it was terminal, that there was nothing they could do for me.

'I remember asking 'Can you slow it down?'. Then I asked how long I'd got, and they said around three months.'

Mr Adams said he was especially shocked by the diagnosis because he 'didn't even feel unwell'.

He added: 'I didn't know what to think, but I can't remember being that upset. It was a bit of a shock.

'I kept on saying 'But I haven't got any pain'. I felt a number of emotions, but pain was not among them. You just start to prepare for it. I was still alive.

                                      

'But you do believe every cough and every pain is the beginning of the end.'

The dire prognosis led Ron on a wild spending-spree, culiminating in him splashing on a new bathroom and driveway for his wife of 62 years, Shelia, 82.

'When you have life savings stored up, and you're told you don't have long left, what else do you do?

'I wouldn't be there to do the jobs for my wife, so I decided to get them all done before I died.

'I was just giving my sons handfuls of money. One of them looked at the bundle of notes and asked 'Is it real, dad?'

'I was holding £5,000. I just wanted them to be secure after I was gone. I used to be scared of everything, I was the biggest coward under the sun.

'But the diagnosis changed me, I just stopped worrying completely. I've had worries all my life and I'm not going to worry again.'

'After the news that I was dying I took a holiday to Spain and flew for the first time in my life without taking medication.'

Six months after being handed the death sentence, he started having chest pains and tight breathing.

He said: 'I was taken to Heartlands Hospital.They did a biopsy and confirmed I had lung cancer.

'But this time they said it was slow-growing and could be treated.'

Thanks to radiotherapy, the growth shrunk, to the extent that, amazingly, he is still alive today.

He added: 'I may still have lung cancer, but I'm alive. There's a message here.

'Even the doctors don't get it right all time - and, for that reason, you should never lose hope.

'We all make mistakes. And that's a mistake I'm very glad they made.'


Source: Dailymail

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