South Shields cancer Survivor’s New Memoir: Shadow of a Survivor

National World - LocalTV

In the 1970’s , South Shields born, John Walker Pattison was told he wouldn’t survive his cancer diagnosis, five decades later he has released a memoir of his life as a survivor.

Transcript

00:00To be perfectly honest, there was some collusion initially with my parents who wanted to try and

00:07keep that diagnosis from me. Now, I never, ever agreed with their collusion, although I can

00:14understand why they wanted to do that. There is no worse feeling in the world than being told that

00:19your child has a cancer diagnosis, despite me being 18 at the time. So I found out by complete

00:25accident, I overheard one of the doctors mentioning my name and saying that I had stage four

00:32lymphoma. That meant absolutely nothing to me. I was currently working in the local shipyard

00:37and happened to pick up a newspaper when I was in hospital having investigations and read about

00:43a soap star who also had lymphoma. So when I read more about this, it then divulged that this person

00:51had a type of blood cancer. Well, it was like being hit in the face with a baseball bat.

01:00The emotional turbulence, a kaleidoscope of unknown emotions to myself. I was on a rollercoaster

01:08ride that I didn't want to be on, that I wanted to get off, but I knew I couldn't.

01:12At 18 years old, John was told that he would not survive his cancer diagnosis.

01:17Now in 2025, he is one of the country's longest surviving cancer patients.

01:24It's a very humbling experience to know that one in two of the population sadly will get

01:31a cancer diagnosis. And we know only too well that not everyone survives. So I do appreciate

01:38every day of life. I do know how fortunate I am. So that never leaves me. Having worked my

01:44entire nursing career in cancer services, I felt I was giving something back to cancer patients.

01:52But in retirement, I wanted to continue to give something back. So I decided I would write

01:57Shadow of a Survivor, which is a three-dimensional account of survivorship. It's not only about

02:05myself and the wreckage of failed chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments and the fact that

02:12my parents were told that I wouldn't survive less than 10 years after my unexpected recovery,

02:17my four-year-old daughter was diagnosed with terminal leukemia. She then went on to have five months

02:25of brutal chemotherapy. And it was probably harder for me to watch her go through chemotherapy

02:31than it was to have the chemotherapy myself. Unfortunately, she deteriorated quite rapidly and

02:37we were told she would not survive. However, like her father, she also went into a spontaneous

02:43remission. She went from strength to strength and then she eventually went on to become an

02:48international swimmer. Swam for Team GB in New Zealand in 1998, making me one of the proudest

02:55fathers in the world. And she came home with two silver medals.

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