Couple battling cancer together to start Race for Life at Clumber Park

A HUSBAND and wife who were diagnosed with cancer twice within months of each other are urging people to support life-saving research.

- BY LAYCIE BECK

Grandparents Carole and Eric Dyson were treated for cancer just months apart, with Carole currently in remission and Eric receiving chemotherapy.

Carole was first diagnosed with a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in February 2021 and underwent six rounds of chemotherapy.

She finished chemotherapy in June of that year and just weeks later Eric tested positive for bowel cancer in July and needed major surgery.

Doctors thought they had removed all traces of Eric’s cancer during a surgery in September 2021 but in July last year tests found that it had come back and was spreading.

Eric, an 80-year-old retired bricklayer and youth trainer, discovered his cancer had returned after visiting the hospital with a swollen leg last summer and was told it was secondary cancer.

Carole said: “He was referred for physiotherapy, but we knew something wasn't right, so we pushed for an appointment to see a specialist.

“He was so poorly they didn’t think it was treatable, but they underestimated his strength.

After a course of steroids, he was well enough to start chemotherapy, and his cancer markers dropped from over 400 to just 15.”