John Hartson has cancer.

[Gully]

From my minimal knowledge of cancer, my understanding is that many primary cancers are treatable if they are caught in time, the real problem is when it spreads to other areas/organs. It sounds like John has a very hard fight ahead of him, I sincerely hope it is one he wins.

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

As many have said, it isn't lung cancer, it's testicular cancer - the cancer is always described from its primary source. If it spread to his brain, it's not surprising that it's in his lungs as well, it may well be in other places. I'm surprised they've done surgery, I presume it's to relieve symptoms.

My thought too about the surgery - I guess the cancer must have been classed as an M1b.

 

[ben andrews' girlfriend]

My thought too about the surgery - I guess the cancer must have been classed as an M1b.

I presume so, I've just gone on NHS evidence, this is what it says about brain mets in testicular cancer:

8.6 Treatment of brain metastases
Brain metastases occur in the frame of a systemic relapse and rarely as an isolated relapse. The long-term
survival of patients presenting with brain metastases at initial diagnosis is poor (30-40%), but even poorer
is the development of a brain metastasis as a recurrent disease (the 5-year survival-rate is 2-5%) (253,
254). Chemotherapy is the initial treatment in this case, and some data support the use of consolidation
radiotherapy, even in the case of a total response after chemotherapy (255). Surgery can be considered in the
case of a persistent solitary metastasis, depending on the systemic state, the histology of the primary tumour
and the location of the metastasis.

So it may well be about where the met is. He doesn't have recurrent disease, so that will work in his favour.

 

[Jimbo26]

Doesn't sound good. Spreading at a rate of knots. All the best John !!

 

[vegster]

Poor fella, life does deal some very unfair cards sometimes.

 

[Questions]

Poor fella, life does deal some very unfair cards sometimes.

You`d have thought being dealt the ginger and Welsh cards were bad enough.


I do hope he is ok though.

 

[GT49er]

All the best to John. I wasn't much older than he was when I was diagnosed with cancer - not testicular, but a nasty one (I asked what the statistic for survival was, and they said there wasn't one...) but I had a major operation which affected my balance and caused considerable hearing loss (which makes being in a crowd a nightmare, which is the main reason - apart from distance and cost - why I don't watch the Albion live very much these days) and radiotherapy.....and I'm still around, twenty odd years on. Hope John can have as good an outcome - but it does look serious for him. Go on John - kick it in the back of the net!

 

[alan partridge]

With my zero medical knowledge, when I first read the news about John Hartson's cancer it sounded to me like he had a very VERY slim chance of surviving.

Touch wood it looks like he's doing well though


John Hartson's relief at cancer news
John Hartson
John Hartson was diagnosed with testicular cancer which spread

Former Wales international footballer John Hartson has spoken of his relief at being told cancer has been "virtually eradicated" from his body.

The ex-Arsenal and Celtic striker was diagnosed in July with testicular cancer that had spread to his brain.

He was admitted to hospital in his home city of Swansea, where he was told the disease had also spread to his lungs.

Hartson, 34, said: "I'm not out of the woods yet, though this is my brightest day for a long time."

The footballer underwent emergency surgery after he was diagnosed with cancer and at one stage he was given a "50-50 chance" of surviving.

He went home from hospital in Swansea in August after completing the first phase of his chemotherapy treatment.


We've all been through so much and to get the news from the doctors that the cancer is going from me is fantastic
John Hartson

His agent Mark Brodie released a statement saying the cancer had been "virtually eradicated".

However, he said the footballer, who went on to become a TV pundit, still has an "arduous journey ahead to complete recovery" and requires extensive surgery to remove "abnormal masses" in his lung and brain over the forthcoming months.

But Hartson said the latest news is a huge boost.

"We've all been through so much and to get the news from the doctors that the cancer is going from me is fantastic," he said.

"I would like to thank every single person that has taken the time to either write to me, phone me or leave a message online, your ongoing support is helping me through the battle of my life and is keeping Sarah and the kids upbeat in such terrifying circumstances.

"I'm not out of the woods yet, though this is my brightest day for a long time."

He said well-wishers including cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, had kept him fighting.

'Turn back clock'

Hartson told BBC Wales last month that he wished he could turn the clock back four years and act as soon as he found a lump.

"From the first minute I felt a lump in my testicle I would be in the doctors," he said.

"You're never too busy are you - there's no excuses, I should have gone and had it checked out.

"I wouldn't have gone through all the rigmarole I've gone through possibly, the operations and everything else.

"I think I'd have had it nipped in the bud, avoided lots of chemo and operations."

He now wants to use his public profile to highlight the need for self-checking.

He hopes to get back into football once his treatment is completed and he has all the necessary coaching badges to enable him to resume his career once he is well enough.

He is also looking forward to the birth of his fourth child - his second with partner Sarah McManus, whom he plans to marry.

He already has two other children from a previous relationship.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Best of luck to him. I have survived 46 or so years since having cancer at the age of 14 months old. Apparently for my type of the disease there was only a 5% chance of living to the age of 5 - but medicine has come a long way since then.

I think these days, they say that if they can catch it early enough, they are reasonably confident of a cure.

 

[CHAPPERS]

John Hartson interview

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jan/26/john-hartson-cancer-recovery-interview

broke my heart in that hospital car park," John Hartson says, his eyes shining as he remembers the moment in Swansea, last July, when he first confronted the reality of cancer. "It was just an ordinary day outside but in my car, on my own, I was crying my eyes out. My doctor had sent me to hospital and they made the diagnosis. I finally got round to phoning Sarah, my girlfriend, who's now my wife, and told her the news. She started crying too and it was horrendous. Something I had long suspected had suddenly come true. I had cancer."

In a plush hotel on Park Lane in London, the cocktail music continues to tinkle and the soft lights gleam on the deep dents that scar Hartson's hairless scalp after extensive brain surgery. Despite his despair last summer the former Wales international footballer stresses that he was not shocked. "I actually knew it would be cancer," he murmurs. "I had this feeling in my gut."

It is tempting to believe Hartson's instinct lasted just a few weeks or, at worst, months. He shakes his head. "I had a lump on my testicles for around four years and so I had this picture in my head. It was of me walking into a doctor's room, or a hospital, and them telling me exactly what I heard in Swansea. I foresaw it."

Did fear prevent Hartson from visiting a doctor for so long? "No, it was just me being stupid, and boyish, and not mature enough to face it. I hoped it would just ­disappear. But the lump got larger."

It also spread, catastrophically, to his lungs and brain. An hour after he heard the diagnosis of stage-four cancer, Hartson began to suffer from "a blinding headache. It went on for days and nothing could stop the pain. I felt so bad I asked my sister to take me to hospital. The cancer was right on top of me then and the next six weeks were a blur."

The breath at the back of Hartson's throat is rasping now but he speaks quickly, and powerfully. "I had to be moved to the neurology unit and, funnily enough, it's now in Cardiff. But last summer it was still in Swansea and so I got lucky. It was only a 10-minute ambulance journey. They tell me that if I'd had to travel to Cardiff I wouldn't be here now. I had two brain operations and was in intensive care. I got pneumonia and I apparently stopped breathing at one stage. But they brought me back and I had pipes and tubes coming out of me, connected to a ventilator. For a month they were just trying to keep me alive rather than tackle the cancer."

When Hartson was strong enough he was subjected to intense chemotherapy. "I had 67 sessions over three months. Your body is zapped and I lost five stone in weight. Thankfully, my appetite came back and I've put half a stone back since then."

As "bald as a coot", and with Sarah almost eight months pregnant, Hartson married in secret a few weeks ago. "It was just us with my cousin and his new wife. We got married on the same day and we wanted to keep it secret but, in the story of my life, the Sunday Mirror got wind of it. It's not how you want your family to find out. But we had our reasons. The plan is to have a big bash and renew our vows again in July. But because of the baby and all these operations I'm facing we wanted to get married now. Someone got a few quid for stitching us up."

Hartson has, slowly, rebuilt his ravaged life. This past weekend he was a pundit on Football Focus for the BBC and an analyst for ITV during Stoke City's defeat of ­Arsenal in the FA Cup. The Sunday before that he was a special guest on Radio 5 live's 606 – revealing a calm dignity that is rarely associated with a phone-in show.

In addressing the brutal way in which cancer took hold of him Hartson draws a stark link between his carefree but essentially thoughtless footballing days and the ignorance that allowed his illness to develop. Years ago, as the most expensive teenager in British football, he played for Arsenal alongside Ian Wright. The ginger-haired Welsh hulk, sold by Luton Town for £2.5m 15 years ago this very month, was one of George Graham's last signings for the club. Six months later Graham was found to have accepted a bung and was banished from Highbury's marble halls. Hartson featured briefly under Arsène Wenger, but he soon moved to West Ham in a team including the young Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard and the more infamous Julian Dicks. He seems to belong to that lost, less glamorous era of football personified by Graham and Dicks.

Hartson won 51 caps for Wales but he was often derided during fleeting stints at Wimbledon, Coventry, Norwich and West Brom. Yet he made a significant impression at West Ham and, of course, Celtic, where he scored more than a hundred goals alongside Henrik Larsson. He developed a rapport with the passionate fans of Upton Park and Parkhead and he was the Player of the Year in Scotland in 2005.

"People just thought, 'John Hartson – that big bleeding hard nut from Swansea.' But I let myself down," he says. "The Eyal Berkovic incident really blighted my career. It's something I deeply regret."

Even now, amid our consuming talk of chemotherapy and surgery, of cancer and death, Hartson shudders at the thought of what he did to his former team-mate at West Ham. After the talented Israeli midfielder struck him on the leg in training, Hartson booted Berkovic full in the face. It was a sickening sight, caught on camera, and Hartson is still mortified.

"Eyal is a terrific fella and he made a lot of my goals at West Ham. I get asked about it all the time, even though it happened 12 years ago. But when you do something that thuggish you rightly get a reputation. I then joined Wimbledon and that added to the thuggish image. But I come from a wonderful family. My parents have been married 30 years. I have a brother in the police force, a sister who is a hairdresser and another who is a solicitor's secretary. I've now got a fantastic wife with three children of my own – and a fourth due in early March. I've got a big heart. But when you do something that vicious you carry a reputation."

Two weeks today the much more mature and generous Hartson will endure his next operation. He tries, admirably, to remain upbeat in describing yet another ordeal. "There is some activity on the lungs that needs to be addressed. The first operation is the big one. It's a six-hour op on the one lung and I'll be in hospital a week. And then a month later they'll do the other lung and in May they'll do the next brain surgery. There's no abnormal activity on the brain but they need to clean out the debris.

"It's tough but I like to think I'm already over the worst. I've had some wonderful news about the cancer. It came at what I thought might be a horrendous meeting with my oncologist. You just don't know what he's going to tell you. But when we went in he was smiling. He told us that the cancer is all but gone and that the chemo had shrunk the tumours. When we heard that, the missus and I were crying and hugging each other in his office."

The dangers obviously remain; but the warmth people now feel towards Hartson is evident as we leave the hotel. He is stopped in the lobby by a polite couple who tell him earnestly how they admire his courage. And then, down a side street, he is hailed by a London taxi driver – an Arsenal fan who just wants to shake his hand and hear how he is coping. "I'm doing great, mate," Hartson beams as leans into the cab, takes the man's hand and mixes a quick medical update with some chitchat about Arsenal's title chances.

Later, as we say goodbye, Hartson's longing to live burns through him. "If I was 75 I wouldn't mind so much. I'd say 'take me.' But I'm 34. My children are 10, seven and 17 months. My new baby girl is not even born. I want to see them all grow up. And things are good now. The work's rolling in and, while I'm going to have to take a break for these operations, I'm getting lots of offers. I was with the kids in the pool the other day and I thought, 'this is what I want. I want to live.'"

Hartson clears his throat and, looking up, he acknowledges another obvious but defining truth. "Some of us are outspoken and do lots of stupid things. We can't all be Michael Owen. It took me a long time but, finally, I've matured. It took a couple of marriages, four kids and illness, but I've grown up. I've now set up The John Hartson Foundation in the hope I can help other young men avoid the same mistakes. Ryan Giggs and Martin Johnson are trustees and I think we can make a difference. If I'd heard someone like me talking four years ago I would've gone to the doctor straight away.

"I've got a long way to go but I can face anything now. I'm not especially religious but I believe in God. I feel he has been looking after me. I had a great career and scored over 200 goals. And now I'm lucky enough to still be here. You need a bit of luck whatever you do in life – whether you're going for a job interview or you're just crossing the street. I've had that good luck a long time now. I just hope it continues."

 

[The Wizard]

Great interview is that.

 

[alan partridge]

Just been reading that. Pretty amazing. I'm sure I wouldn't be able to handle that. Don't even like having blood tests.
Good on him.

 

[captainmorganrum]

Excellent news that he's chugging along.

Bois, give em a good feel tonight mun.
Or get your missus/girlfriend/significant other to help out.

And GO TO THE DOCS boys if they aren't right.