Both My Boys Beat Cancer!

These twin brothers were diagnosed with cancer just days apart

- Brigid Auchett

They’re the words you never want to hear – “Your child has cancer.” But for mum Lesley Collard, it’s the reality she’s had to live with twice over when her twins Sean and Ryan were diagnosed with testicular cancer just 20 days apart.

“I was heartbroken, I really did not know how I would cope,” Lesley tells Woman’s Day. “I was just in disbelief... I had always said throughout my life that I was so lucky to have two fit and healthy boys and never worried about them.”

Used to aches and pains from years of the sport, Ryan, then 23, says he wasn’t alarmed when his back pain became severe, chalking it up too long days on his feet as a primary school teacher. But in September 2017, when he started losing feeling in his right side and fainting, he knew something wasn’t right.

SHOCK DIAGNOSIS

“I was dropping my brother off at work when I noticed that the right side of my body had gone limp. The next time, I passed out,” says Ryan.

“At its worst point, I was going numb up to 10 times a day and passing out regularly. No one could tell me what was wrong. They assumed it was two separate issues – a neurological one and a muscular one.”