Loving dad’s passion for DIY saves his life after developing swelling on his leg boarding up daughter’s loft which leads to doctors finding kidney cancer

A loving dad was astonished when his passion for DIY saved his life after a swelling developed on his right leg while he boarded his daughter’s loft and led to doctors finding the “silent cancer” on his kidney that could have killed him.

Business analyst Gary Marshall, 57, is always first to roll his sleeves up when anyone needs home improvements – fitting the bathroom and kitchen at the house in Leeds, West Yorkshire, where he lives with his retired wife Elizabeth, 55, and always keen to help their adult daughters Catherine, Rebecca and Stephanie.

In early 2020, as he transformed the loft of Rebecca’s new-build house into a sturdy storage area, he spotted a swelling on his right leg, which he had checked out when it refused to go down, saying: “It was completely incidental.”

He added: “I put it off for a few days thinking it’d go down, but eventually went to the doctor who sent me for tests. That’s when they found I had kidney cancer.”

Suspecting he could have heart issues at first, Gary’s GP sent him for tests, which came back clear.

Then referred for an ultrasound, in case he had something else like a blockage in his abdomen, he was also prescribed anti-inflammatory cream.

Within four days, the swelling – which was harmless and had simply been caused by kneeling down for long periods doing DIY – vanished.

But Gary was blindsided when the ultrasound revealed a 6.5-7cm tumour on his kidney.

By then it was March 2020, the country was in lockdown and Gary received his results of a follow-up CT scan – regarded as the ‘gold standard’ of x-rays – by phone.

He said: “I was sat at home with my wife in my office when the doctor called.

“It was such a shock to hear I had kidney cancer over the phone, but because of the pandemic, there was no other way.”

Gary was informed his cancer was aggressive but had been found early and was stage one.

Blood in urine
A persistent pain in your lower back or side
A lump of swelling in your side
Tiredness
Night sweats
High blood pressure
A high temperature
Bone pain
Coughing up blood
Swollen glands in your neck and, in men, swelling veins in the testes.

He had displayed none of the traditional symptoms of the disease and would have been completely unaware he had cancer, had tests not taken place – prompted by his DIY injury.

Known as the ‘silent cancer’ as it often goes undetected for a long time, and Gary was told he would need surgery to remove the kidney with the tumour, ideally within the following fortnight.

Uncertainties of the pandemic, however, meant he was warned his operation might not happen for nine months.

Anxious, unsure of how to access support groups in lockdown and not wanting to further worry Elizabeth or their children, initially, he felt he had to just “sit home and wait.”

Then, deciding to turn a negative into a positive, he walked 26 miles, raising £2,500 for charity.

And, nearly four weeks after his diagnosis, he received a call informing him he was booked in for surgery two days later.

The tumour was successfully removed and, after further treatment for a hernia and some complications with his bowel from the operation, Gary was confirmed to be cancer-free.

Since the operation, he has received invaluable support from the charity Kidney Cancer UK.

Gary said: “I found the charity after my op but they’ve still been really important. Even now, I go onto their online support groups and just talk to people in the same boat.”

He added: “They also have cancer nurses on there, so you can ask them questions too. There’s no such thing as a stupid question.

“Having people you can see face-to-face over video meet-ups and get to know over a period of time really helps your mental state.”

Talking to fellow kidney cancer survivors has also taught Gary that he is not alone in following an unusual path to his diagnosis.

He said: “There are classic symptoms of kidney cancer, like blood in the urine, back pain and pain in the side.

“But for many of the people I’ve spoken to, they’re just like me. They haven’t had those symptoms and their cancer has been picked up incidentally when they’ve gone to the doctor about something else.

“If it wasn’t for working in the loft that day, I could have just been living with it and not knowing and it could have spread.”

He added: “I feel so lucky. But I also feel guilt, as I speak to people having lots of treatment and, in a way, I feel I’ve got off lightly.”

Last summer, just a year after his cancer battle, he dusted off his tools and built a deck in his garden for a hot tub.

He said: “My wife and daughter, Stephanie, had to help me with the deck, or it wouldn’t have got done.”

He added: “I was too tired to spend the long periods on it that I wanted to, but we got there in the end.”

Thanks to plenty of support from family, friends and people he has met on the Kidney Cancer UK online groups, Gary is now feeling physically fit again and is looking forward to retiring in September, to spend more time with his loved ones.

And in Kidney Cancer Awareness Week running from February 7 to 11, he wants to warn people of the signs of the disease.

Gary, who is keen for people to know that kidney cancer is the seventh most common cancer in the UK, with 13 people dying of it every day, said: “You hear about breast cancer, bowel cancer, lung cancer. But when do you hear about kidney cancer?

“I certainly didn’t know anything about it. If you have any symptoms, please go and see your GP. I got lucky but not everyone will so it’s crucial to go at the first signs something is wrong.”

*For more information go to https://www.kcuk.org.uk/