by Sally Clifford

MOST men balk at going to see the doctor.

"Us men don't go to the doctor," says Simon Elliott.

Typically men don't talk about their health and Simon had never had any reason to seek medical advice.

He kept himself fit and active through a relatively physically demanding job working as a wood machinist and joiner, and also played rugby.

There was nothing to suggest Simon was ill until he felt a sudden pain under his right rib while playing football in the local park with his seven-year-old son, George.

Even then he put the pain down to a stitch and it wasn't until he felt it on a few occasions afterwards that he decided to go and see his doctor.

Gallstones was a possibility so Simon was sent for a scan but investigations revealed a dark mass which turned out to be a 9lb tumour sitting between his liver and his kidney.

Naturally, he found it hard to comprehend. He felt so well and looking back the only symptoms, which he didn't even associate with Kidney Cancer, a disease he hadn't even heard of before his own diagnosis in March 2014, were night sweats and backache.

He put the backache down to his job and didn't think anything about the night sweats but here he was sitting in the consultant's office in his home city of Bradford staring at the black shadow on his CT scan which, he discovered, had been growing for two to three years.

Simon couldn't understand why he hadn't felt poorly but the consultant explained that is why kidney cancer is called the silent killer. "Because your kidneys are in your back when it grows it grows outwards and it grows into your stomach and until it starts touching things, hence I was playing football and it nipped me, that is the sign I got. The main sign is when there is blood in your wee but I never had that," explains Simon."

Simon and his wife, Sally, were devastated. "I didn't get emotional in front of the consultant. The nurse took me into another room and I completely broke down. We were both in tears me and Sally and I automatically thought 'how long have I got to live. I've got three children. I was 39 then and I thought 'what am I going to do?' I'm not going to see my two girls get married and I'm not going to see my grandchildren."

Telling his children, 15-year-old Mia, 11-year-old Sophie and seven-year-old George, was one of the most difficult moments.

"I asked the nurse what to say, what do I do and they said tell them the truth. Everybody was shocked."

In June 2014 and shortly after his diagnosis, Simon underwent a six and a half hour operation at Bradford Royal Infirmary to remove the tumour and his right kidney.

He spent just over a week in hospital before returning to the family home in Low Moor. Simon didn't need any follow up treatment but had regular scans.

It was during a check-up at St Luke's Hospital in Bradford in December that Simon was dealt another devastating blow. "It was just a check-up, I was still thinking I was all clear and buzzing."

Simon was due to start a job in January when he received a phone call asking him to go into the hospital where he was given the devastating news that he had secondary cancer which was now inoperable as it had spread in five different places.

His only option was medication to shrink the tumours. He was referred to the specialist cancer centre at St James Hospital in Leeds for the treatment.

But despite feeling well while taking the medication, Simon discovered after six months of taking it that the tumours were starting to grow again and he was told he had to stop taking it.

"I said I need to live. I need to live for my children and my wife and everyone else. There must be something out there."

The only option was a brand new drug so Simon was referred to The Christie Hospital in Manchester, which has been pioneering cancer research breakthroughs for more than 100 years, to see if it would be suitable for him.

In January he started the medication and is now clinging to the hope that it will extend his life.

"I live for today," he says, referring to the impact the disease has had on him and his family.

Simon talks about the life-saving situations he found himself in; firstly saving his father after he was choking on some meat while eating his tea and he also prevented his daughter from choking on her breakfast. Then there was the young lad caught under a bus in Bradford. Simon explains he was working at a plastics firm in Manchester Road at the time when he heard a bang and realised a young lad was under the bus.

"I ran over and people were looking under the bus. He said he was going to die so I climbed under the bus and held his hand and told him the ambulance and fire crews were on their way. I never got his name and I don't know who he was," says Simon.

His other life saving gesture is to encourage everyone to seek medical advice for anything they think is out of the ordinary or if they have a pain in their right or left rib; are suffering with night sweats and have backache.

Simon says he cannot thank the medical teams involved in his care, and organisations such as Cancer Support Bradford and Airedale enough for their care and support. "Everybody has been absolutely fantastic to me," says Simon.

"And," he adds: "If I can save one person I am happy."

To help raise awareness about kidney cancer Simon is participating in the Kidney Cancer Open Day event organised by Cancer Support Bradford & Airedale and Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The session runs on Wednesday, March 9 from 9.30am to 12.30pm at the cancer support centre, Daisy House Farm, 44 Smith Lane, Bradford.

* For more information about the event or for advice and support call Cancer Support Bradford & Airedale (01274) 776688 or email support@bradfordcancersupport.org.uk