Road to recovery: A dream 4 years in the making
Luke
The road to recovery was filled with an extra edge of anticipation and ambition for Luke, who had to put the restoration of his dream car to one side following a testicular cancer diagnosis. This is Luke’s story of how he finally got behind the wheel of his classic Mini.
On my 18th birthday, I had the biggest surprise of my life - my parents brought me a Classic Mini to do up as a project. I grew up watching Mr Bean and the classic 60s film – The Italian Job, and so I’ve been obsessed with Minis since before I can remember. My dad and I would spend most weekends working on it as there was a lot of work that needed doing including: welding, completely stripping the engine and a full respray. It was going well, then just over halfway through getting it completed everything changed.
My mum has always talked to my sister and I about checking for lumps. I think that was a massive key to how I found my lump. I sat my mum down to say that I had found something unusual on my right testicle. Straight away we were both very concerned, but we gathered our emotions, and I booked in to see my GP.
On the day of my appointment, I was nervous about going but knew I needed to do it. After the doctor checked me over, he sat me down and said there’s nothing to worry about, it’s just a cyst. I breathed a massive sigh of relief. He also said it was pea size even though it was more marble size to me, but you tend to trust what your doctor tells you.
A couple of months down the line it started to feel like it had gotten bigger. The day before my 21st birthday I woke up in excruciating pain, so I was on the phone to the doctors straight away. My appointment was on my 21st Birthday. The second doctor I saw was brilliant. He referred me to The Alexandra Hospital in Redditch straight away, saying it could possibly be testicular cancer. This was on the Tuesday, then I had an appointment with my specialist on the Sunday. Mum and I went on Sunday. As soon as the doctor examined me, we both knew straight away that it was testicular cancer by the expression on his face. It’s hard to express how I felt. It was like a black hole. I didn’t know what was going to happen.
I had a lot of ambitions and now that I had cancer, I thought they might not happen. It was so hard not being able to work on the Mini after constantly working on it weekend after weekend. I felt that my dream had come to an end, and I was devastated.
Luke's incomplete Mini
My Teenage Cancer Trust Youth Support Coordinator Cathy, from Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, and Rosa, my Teenage Cancer Trust Teenage and Young Adult Clinical Liaison Nurse Specialist from Worcester Acute Hospital, have been amazing, staying in touch regularly, seeing how I am. Nothing is too big or too small for them, they’re amazing. I’ve also been on some trips with them and other young people with cancer. It was great to find new friends and see new people and have a good time doing it.
As the months and my treatment went by, I started to get stronger, so I then started to order car parts that I knew I would need off the internet such as the starter motor, alternators, headlights, front windscreen, roof headlining and bumpers so we could start to work on the Mini again. I could begin to see that there was light at the end of the tunnel and my dream was getting closer to being finished.
When we started the engine for the first time in 4 years it was a ‘butterfly moment’. It took a couple of attempts to get started but then it burst into life, and it was the best sound just hearing it running, it was music to my ears.
From there the last major parts of the build were to prepare and fully respray the car to hide all the patch work, and add the final touches like the bumpers, lights, grille, and the famous Italian job style spotlights. After months of heartache, hard work and determination the Mini was ready to drive. My parents and sister were all here on the day that we took the mini on its first run. We couldn’t believe that the time had come to take it for its first M.O.T after being restored. This was our first outing.
My dad was the first person to drive it. He went up and down our road a couple of times to make sure it was all running and stopping ok. Then, it was M.O.T time. It was emotional and hilarious at the same time seeing it on the road with the other cars towering over us. We did the test there and then, and my dad had a final surprise for me. The day before, without me knowing, he had already insured it so I was the main driver, meaning I was legal to drive it. So, he handed me the keys and said you can drive home.
Emotions were very high that the project was finally finished after 4 extremely hard years. I could finally get behind the wheel and drive it. I was overwhelmed to say the least. At the weekend we took the mini out again to visit family, who had only seen the car in bits and in photos. Their faces were a picture, they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. It had been a long time coming. I can 100% say it was the best experience I’ve had. It still feels so surreal to be driving it now, definitely a pinch me moment. Beep beep!
