Marathon man who beat two near-death illnesses

MARTIN Lambert, 46, was a fit and healthy family man, running various half marathons and generally enjoying life when he was knocked out by two life-threatening illnesses within a few months.

In September 2011, Martin suffered an extremely rare viral infection which nearly left him paralysed.

“I started getting pins and needles in my feet. I thought I had slipped a disc, being a runner, and that something was rubbing on my spine.”

The sensations started on a Wednesday; by the Saturday, his whole body had started to lose feeling as the numbness crept upwards. Checking in at Airedale Hospital, he was transferred to the Leeds General Infirmary.

“The tightness was right up to my chest area. I could only just walk; I couldn’t grip. It was a sensation of a lack of control.”

At the LGI, he was diagnosed as having transverse myelitis.

“Myelin is the coating around the nerves,” explained Martin. “It’s like the electrical insulation around wires. Basically, you short circuit.”

The infection had started at the top of the vertebrae, and the virus had spread. The body strips the nerves of insulation. It is a rare disease, with only one in one million people in the UK affected.

“It was pure dumb luck,” said Martin, who went on to have a lumbar puncture where fluid was taken from his spinal column. “My body had fought off the infection, but had done a lot of damage to the nerves in the process. There was no indication of how I may have got the original virus – I hadn’t been to any exotic climes. There was no predisposition – it just hits you.”

He was pumped full of steroids. “It’s hit and hope, nothing more. The steroids stimulate the body to repair itself, and the nerves to communicate again.”

Martin was in the LGI for four days. Physio helped, but he was champing at the bit to get out and get running.

“I did what I probably shouldn’t have done, but I was on the fifth storey of the hospital. So I started walking, going up and down the stairs. I had entered the Great North Run, due to take place in a few weeks, and it was still my intention to take part.”

Back at home, Martin struggled to do up a button on a shirt; 
to hold a pen; to eat with knife and fork. He was forced to defer his place in the Great North 
Run.

“It took three months to recover. I went walking, went to the gym, running, and slowly got back to normal.”

Then in March 2012 he noticed blood in his urine. “I was in my mid-40s – I thought, kidney stones. I had blood tests, urine tests, an endoscopy – they couldn’t find anything.”

He was sent for a CT scan.

“I thought it was just a routine check up. A week later I was asked to see the consultant surgeon at Airedale. He sat me down; he was very matter of fact.”

Martin had cancer. A tumour had grown in his right kidney, and needed to be removed.

Stunned, Martin then had to face telling his wife and sons. He had supposed to be going to India on business, but that had to be cancelled as surgery was booked for three weeks’ time.

He and his wife, Sue, talked things over for a few days before telling Scott, then 17, and Tom, then 13.

“I said I had cancer and had to have a kidney removed. It was a case of being honest with them. They were shocked – they are used to seeing their grandparents getting old but to be told your parents in their 40s have a life-threatening illness was a lot for them to take in.”

Martin had support from friends and family, in particular from his brother-in-law, a consultant anaesthetist.

Martin’s kidney was removed on April 17.

“I was high as a kite! Couldn’t feel a thing, I was dosed up to my eyeballs in morphine. Then they took me off the morphine two days later ...” The pain was, quite simply, excruciating. He couldn’t move, and even breathing was painful. He had a ten-inch cut on his right side; a rib had been removed, and the surgeons had had to collapse a lung to carry out various exploratory work in his liver and lungs.

The tumour had been encased wholly in the kidney. The cancer had not spread to other organs.

After four days in hospital and a week in bed at home, struggling to do simple things, Martin resolved to start running again.

Three weeks after the operation he took a train to Skipton and walked the 13 miles back to Bingley. “It hurt a bit in the last three miles! But it drove me on, and it was psychologically helpful. I went back to work the next day.”

Martin got the all clear in early September and went on to take part in the Great North Run a week later. He admits that the two experiences have changed him as a person.

“What they have done is made me rely on others. I was a control freak, but I lost control. I had a troubled childhood, and learned to avoid ever being caught out by anything, so I was always in control.

“But what I went through made me change. It was a catalyst. After the viral infection, I signed up for some executive coaching, which fortunately triggered deeper discussion and led me to have therapy. I was able to address the issues of my childhood and it has allowed me to become more vulnerable. I now enjoy life more.

“The illness didn’t attack me as a person, but as an organic human being. I am unique in having had both of those illnesses in such a short time, and having survived them.”

Martin has decided to leave his job as a chief finance officer of an academic publishers in Bingley, and set up his own business as a financial consultant. He is determined to say goodbye to the 50-hour weeks and have more of a work-life balance.

“At times the last year has been dark, but throughout I was determined to overcome the challenges and without the love and support of my family and friends I’m not sure I could have made it.

“But here I am in 2013, tingling hands, a huge scar on my right side and about to start my own business. I’ve learnt to trust others and to enjoy life.”

On Sunday, Martin will be running the London Marathon, and raising funds for Cancer Research. It will be his first full marathon.

“I’ve always wanted to run a full marathon. I’ve run 18, going from Beckfoot School into Bradford and back, then to Keighley and back to Bingley. It’s hard, but I’m aiming to do the marathon in under five hours.”

Will he be wearing a Donald Duck outfit?

“No, but if someone out there will sponsor me to dye my hair pink for the run I will take them up!”

• To sponsor Martin in the London Marathon visit www.uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MartinLambertCancer