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Craig Bryden

Craig Bryden:

“I’m not unwell, I’ve just got cancer”

Craig Bryden is an ordinary bloke.Married with two kids,he likes going to the pub,watching
football - and dressing up as a pirate when getting chemotherapy!
Craig was diagnosed with stage 4 small cell lung cancer in March 2016. He has endured five
rounds of chemo, emergency blood transfusions and severe mouth ulcers. He hasn’t run a
marathon, climbed a mountain or held a charity fundraiser. He’s just a man living with lung
cancer the best way he knows how:

“I’d never given lung cancer a thought. Even after my uncle “During my consultation with a radiotherapist, I’ll have
died of the disease 15 years ago, I didn’t cut back on my cancer then. The time in-between, I haven’t. That’s just my
smoking. I just thought ‘It’ll never happen to me’. coping strategy.

“I received an over 55 NHS health check letter through the “There’ve been times where people have come up to me
post. Usually it was the type of thing that I would have just in the pub and asked ‘How are you feeling, Craig? I hear
stuffed in a drawer but, for once, I decided to act on it. So you’re ill?’ and I just say ‘I’m not unwell, I’ve just got cancer.’
I had my check then we went on holiday to Portugal – we They don’t ask you many more questions after that!
liked to go on at least three, if not four, holidays a year!
“I’m just being me. I play pool on a Wednesday night. I go
“I got the results when I got back and they were surprisingly to the pub and watch football. And, of course, we’re still
fantastic. They asked me if there was anything else I was planning holidays.”
concerned with and I mentioned my chest felt a little tighter
than normal.They arranged for a chest x-ray that afternoon.

“I got a phone call two hours later, telling me they had
found a large mass on my right lung. And I knew. I knew
straight away it was cancer.

“I was with my wife, Rae, when the consultant
confirmed it. I heard a sharp intake of breath
and I just tapped her on the knee and said -
Don’t worry darling, I’ve known for a couple

of weeks now, it’ll be fine.”

“When I first started my treatment, I suffered from really Craig is one of the faces of this year’s Lung Cancer
bad mouth ulcers and, obviously, my hair fell out. I was also Awareness Month (LCAM) campaign. He created
extremely tired; I couldn’t even walk to the end of the a film, urging people with symptoms to go to their
street. I ended up having a blood transfusion with three doctor. The film has been viewed by over 100,000
bags of blood. However, as the treatments have gone on, people and encouraged many to share their own
we’ve realised I can still do a lot of the stuff I was doing stories and symptoms.
before.We’ve been on holiday and I still do all the driving.
To watch Craig’s video, please visit
“On a day to day basis, I don’t even think about it – I’ve www.facebook.com/roycastlelungcancer
not got cancer right now.Two o’clock tomorrow, when I’m
hooked up to my chemo, I’ll have cancer.

8 Inspire 2016