Young man who thought he had stomach bug dies from cancer months later
A heartbroken brother has described how his young and healthy brother died from an aggressive type of luekaemia after leaving his football match early when he became unwell.
Tommy Stocks sudden inability to play football after feeling ill turned out to be cancer which came out of the blue for him and his four brothers.
The 26-year-old, from Halewood, Liverpool, tragically died three weeks after receiving confirmation he had leukaemia.
He was a Liverpool cross country champion and played for Liverpool as a teen until club let him got at 18, the ECHO reports.
Brother Joe, 32, explained: "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.
Cherished girl, 3, who spent half her life in hospital dies before surgery
"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."
Joe Stocks, 32, has started a health club to try and reduce the chance of people getting cancer (Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)Chemotherapy pushed the cancer into remission, but it returned again after six months.
"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'," Joe explained.
"He was only 26. On 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."
"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."
Roughly one in four cancer cases in the UK can be, according to Cancer Research UK.
Which is more than 135,000 people diagnosed with a preventable cancer each year.
Tommy Stock, from Liverpool, died at the age of 26 after suddenly becoming ill (Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)Joe, who is a father himself, believes there is a health crisis in the area.
Girl's heartbreaking cancer relapse after beating disease she first had at 10
He runs Apollo Sports Club, based in Knowsley, where nearly three in four adults were overweight or obese in 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 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."
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
