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Home » Uncategorized » Man died months after coming home from football because he felt unwell – Liverpool Echo

A man was determined to help the fight against cancer after losing his older brother to leukaemia.

Tommy Stocks, from Halewood, had four younger brothers who admired him like he was much older than he was, according to one brother Joe, who said: "We were four lads, all close in age growing up. My dad was a footballer and a runner, so we naturally fell into that. Most of us have been in and out of clubs, my older brother played for Liverpool for years."

Joe, 32, rattled off his brother's achievements as a Liverpool cross country champion and playing for Liverpool as a teen until the club let him go when was 18. He kept playing for other clubs, but lost his way with sports, which Joe puts down in part to the heartache of being released by the club.

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His family would face their own heartache soon after. Joe said: "It was just one of them freak things. He was 22, playing footie one day and he just felt sick and tired, like he couldn't run anymore. He came home and he was just like, 'I feel terrible me'. He must have just thought he had a bug or something, and it wouldn't go.

"I remember one day he woke up and his gums were bleeding. That's one of the big signs of leukaemia. He went to the doctors and that was it then, he was in and diagnosed. It was scary like, but it was quite quick from that. He had the most aggressive one too. It was caught early, but it was the worst one to get."

Chemotherapy pushed the cancer into remission. But after six months it was back and Tommy had to go through the process again. He went to the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre for radiotherapy and had a bone marrow transplant.

Joe, now 32, said: "We were trying everything and then just before Christmas 2014, we found out it was back. It was a horrible time because it was kind of like, 'There's nothing we can do'. He was only 26. One the 15th of December he was given six months to live.

"The cancer was so aggressive he died three weeks later. It seems a long time ago, it was nine years ago, but it literally seems like two years ago. At the time I was 22, so a bit of a kid myself. I was more shell-shocked than anything else. I didn't really talk about it much.

"I wasn't in denial about it, I just didn't feel comfortable opening up about it. I kind of kept everything to myself. It's probably only in the last couple years I can actually talk about it."

He added: "Before my brother, I didn't have anyone in the family who'd had cancer. No one that close to me where it hits home and hurts a lot. So, if the topic came up, I probably wouldn't think much about it. It's not until you lose a loved one that it really hits home and you can understand the need to do something about it."

Tommy's leukaemia likely couldn't have been prevented, but roughly one in four cancer cases in the UK can be, according to Cancer Research UK. That's more than 135,000 people diagnosed with a preventable cancer each year.

For some of the most common preventable cancers - including bowel, breast and pancreatic cancers - keeping active and maintaining a healthy weight are two of the best ways to reduce your risk of developing them, according to the NHS.

Reducing this risk is just as important as early diagnosis when it comes to tackling cancer, according Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance (CMCA). The NHS organisation is funding roughly 30 grassroots projects across Knowsley, Halton and Warrington to raise awareness of cancer, its symptoms and risk factors as part of its Early Diagnosis Community Engagement programme.

One of these is run by Joe and his Apollo Sports Club, based in Knowsley, where nearly three in four adults were overweight or obese in the year ending March 2021. Around 50 people play sports ranging from football to badminton and basketball at each of the free, three-hour sessions aimed at kids and parents at Halewood Leisure Centre.

Joe, a dad himself, said: "At first we thought it was just about spreading awareness of check-ups, but the more you look into it, you realise Knowsley has an obesity crisis. This then leads to a lot more types of cancer and a lot more chances of getting cancer, so you've got to look at preventative measures.

"A lot of children don't engage in sports simply because their parents don't. If your parents are sitting at home eating chippies every night and not moving, then the kids are probably going to follow in the same footsteps. This programme gives a bit of encouragement and a bit of confidence to the parents.

"If you haven't done sports for 20 years, well come and have a game of badminton with your child, come and have a game of table tennis or dodgeball. Engage with them and then the kids will see you're loving it, then they're going to want to do it."

Moray Hayman, a CMCA project manager who leads the programme, said: "This initiative seeks to support local communities to reduce their risk of dying from cancer, by improving community understanding and awareness of signs and symptoms of cancer and encouraging appropriate health-seeking behaviour.

"We are also encouraging more people who experience cancer to be supported to achieve emotional wellbeing and to reduce stigma and discrimination relating to cancer diagnosis.

"By working with voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations, the scheme focuses on improving knowledge of the signs and symptoms of cancer within local communities, encouraging more people to go for NHS screening when they are invited and to reduce inequalities in access to high-quality cancer treatment."

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Man died months after coming home from football because he felt unwell - Liverpool Echo

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Home » Uncategorized » Man died months after coming home from football because he felt unwell – Liverpool Echo