Cancer survivor has 'fourth chance at life'

A supermarket manager who relapsed with cancer several times and also suffered a heart attack believes he has been given a "fourth chance at life" and has halved his body weight.

Store boss Sheldon Donovan's health issues began in 2016, when he was 25, with a Hodgkin Lymphoma diagnosis - a type of blood cancer.

In the years that followed he underwent two different stem cell transplants and suffered a cardiac arrest, before getting an all clear in 2022.

Now a keen runner, Donovan said doctors were "over the moon" with his progress and he was "feeling better than ever" after losing several stone in weight.

Discussing his health battles, Donovan, from Worcester, described his cancer diagnosis as a "relief" after he had been in hospital for three months with a cough.

"I remember feeling relieved because I knew that meant there would be a treatment plan," he explained.

But further tests showed the then 25-year-old's cancer had spread to his lung, spleen and spine.

He completed a six-month stint of chemotherapy but relapsed for the first time on Christmas Eve 2019.

Three months later, the cancer returned once more and meant he needed a stem cell donor.

Further chemotherapy and radiotherapy followed and, in October 2020, he was able to have surgery through a German donor.

But Donovan he found himself experiencing more symptoms of tiredness and coughing in June 2021.

Then, after being admitted to hospital for tests, he suffered a heart attack.

"I remember the nurse trying to put a canula in and then nothing until I woke up in intensive care with a tracheotomy seven weeks later," he recalled.

"The ward was full of Covid patients so the nurses were all wearing hazmats which was quite scary. Because I'd been on my back for so long, I had to learn to walk again."

Before his health issues, he had weighed more than 32 stone (203kg) but had since lost half his body weight.

"After getting a second, third and then fourth chance at life, something clicked and I was determined to keep on losing the weight," he said.

Nearly a decade on from his original diagnosis, Donovan was at Malvern Shopping Park on Tuesday to open Worcestershire's first Cancer Research UK superstore.

"I'm very excited and so proud to support research that will help give other people like me a future," he said.

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