Life

Transplant Sport chairman pulls up a chair for blood cancer campaign

Ahead of Blood Cancer Awareness Month in September, Northern Ireland's longest surviving bone marrow transplant patient, Andrew Weir, tells Gail Bell why he's happy to pull up a chair and tell his story for charity campaign

Andrew Weir, right, is one of the faces of the hard-hitting Empy Chairs campaign
Andrew Weir, right, is one of the faces of the hard-hitting Empy Chairs campaign Andrew Weir, right, is one of the faces of the hard-hitting Empy Chairs campaign

THEY are two small words, but when paired together, 'Empty Chairs' enlarges painfully into the lexicon of the bereaved; a term so acutely linked with loss that virtually no explanation is needed.

It is a title that demands our emotional attention and so has been an effective headline campaign this year for Leukaemia and Lymphoma NI which is set to intensify its publicity drive ahead of Blood Cancer Awareness Month in September.

The charity, which is running the Empty Chairs campaign until the end of the year, has chosen a number of cancer survivors to personalise the statistics and drive home the message that while three out of every four people in Northern Ireland now survive blood cancer, one person will not.

More than 1,200 people every year in the north are diagnosed with blood and lymphoma – now the UK's third biggest cancer killer – and, despite being less common than breast and prostate cancer, the outcome is significantly poorer.

With this in mind, Leukaemia and Lymphoma NI decided to run its Empty Chairs awareness crusade over the course of a year, calling this month on Belfast man Andrew Weir, chairman of Transplant Sport Northern Ireland, to step under the microscope.

Andrew (56), from east Belfast, is Northern Ireland's longest surviving bone marrow transplant recipient and the sixth survivor to tell his story – doing so as he packed up his golf clubs to to north Lanarkshire in Scotland for the British Transplant Games last week.

Away from the competition field, the retired aerospace worker – he worked for Short's in Belfast for 36 years – feels it equally important to lend his support to Leukaemia and Lymphoma NI and its ongoing drive to fund research into causes, treatment and ultimately, better future outcomes for patients.

"I was diagnosed with blood cancer when I was 15 and had a bone marrow transplant at 21 – it was quite scary, looking back, because up until then, no-one else in Northern Ireland had survived the operation," he says.

"It started off with aches and pains in my legs, which could have been anything, but blood tests confirmed I had acute lymphatic leukaemia.

"I had chemotherapy to start with and then the disease came back after four and-a-half years. I was offered a bone marrow transplant when I was in remission, but it was literally a life-or-death decision as no-one in Northern Ireland had yet survived the operation.

"I remember waking up in my hospital bed and the consultant coming to say he had good news and tests had shown that the transplant had taken. There was huge relief and I was happy, to say the least."

There was another reason, though, that Andrew was feeling the joy of life again and it had nothing to do with his recovery – he had met his future wife, Myra, on the hospital ward.

"Myra was also a patient and she was being treated for SLE [Systemic lupus erythematosus, or lupus] an autoimmune disorder. When I was in isolation. she would wave at me through the glass and we would speak to each other on the telephone.

"We cheered each other up and it just went from there. Today, she is still cheering me on and comes to support me at the various transplant competitions."

He is too modest to say, but the stoic Mr Weir has amassed almost 40 medals over three decades in swimming, golf and archery events – although due to infection, he has been unable to take part in the swimming challenges this year.

"I'm hoping to get back to swimming soon, but this year I have been concentrating on the golf," he says. "People tell me that I'm very resilient and brave, but I don't see it like that.

"Now I am retired, I like to enjoy life and we travel as much as we can. I don't think I'm anyone special; when I see people with heart transplants competing in the transplant games and living life to the full, now that really makes me go, 'Wow'.

"You meet all different types of people in the transplant games arena, all with their own miraculous stories to tell and we have the best craic – the running joke is that ours is the only event where you would get disqualified if you don't take tablets. That always makes me laugh."

:: For more Empty Chairs stories and information on the work of the charity, visit www.leukaemiaandlymphomani.org